what happened to Mount Gundabad?

[Hans Markus Rod]

Durin the father of dwarves woke up at Mount Gundabad, or am i wrong? I belive to have read it somewhere, that Mount Gundabad became one of the most important dwarven cities.

In The Hobbit there are references to Mount Gundabad as being 'the capital of orcs.'

What i am wondering is, what happened to Mount Gundabad. was it assailed bu orcs in the first age? Did the dwarves abandon the mountain. I have been pondering about it a long time, and i have not found any answeres yet.

[Morwen Tindomerel]

I've always assumed that Mount Gundabad, like Moria later, was conquered by Orcs. Possibly it became depopulated as a result of Dwarves moving southward to the rich mines of Moria and so was relatively easy prey. I seem to recall something about it being a 'holy' site for the Dwarves and it's occupation fiercely resented.

I assume they got it back sometime in the Fourth Age.

[Aule]

I always thought that Mt.Gundabad was just a orc capitAL. I never realised it was once a dwarven city. When did this happen, or where can i read about it.

[Kuruharan]

Mount Gundabad was the awakening site of Durin. (Gundabad itself is a Dwarvish word, not orcish.)

After he awoke he wandered the world for a couple of decades and when he returned to Gundabad he found the other Dwarf Fathers there waiting for him. Gundabad was where the Dwarves first established themselves. It was their first capital.

When the different houses of the Dwarves dispersed Gundabad remained in the hands of the Longbeards, even though many of them went south to Khazad-dum. However, Gundabad was so depopulated that it may have been seized at the end of the First Age by fugitives from Thangorodrim. Soon afterward Gundabad may have been retaken by the Longbeards in alliance with the Edainic Men of Wilderland.

During the Dark Years the orcs overran the northern mountains again and Gundabad was lost for (possibly) the second time. It may have been retaken with the end of the Dark Years.

It might possibly have been Dwarves of Gundabad that killed Fram, lord of the Eotheod, possibly.

It seems likely that the final fall of Gundabad came around TA 1300 (or after) with the establishment of Angmar. After the fall of Angmar it remained in the hands of the orcs of that area.

It should be noted that much of this post is purely speculative in nature. The information is gleaned from tidbits of information from all over the place. One of the more important sources is "Of Dwarves and Men" in The Peoples of Middle Earth.

This is probably more than you ever wanted to know about the (theoretical) history of Gundabad.

[Aule]

Actually i found what you had to say very interesting, so if you have more bits of info, i would love to hear it [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[the guy who be short]

I dont know about the first fall of Mt. Gundabad, but i do know about its retaking by the dwarves. everybody who has read the appendices will be familiar with the war of the dwarves and orcs, started in vengeance by the dwarves after their king was killed. in third age 2796, they attacked Gundabad and retook it. This is mere presumpsyion, but in the appendices it says they "sacked all the strongholds of the orcs from Mt. Gundabad to the gladden" so i assume they took it right at the beginning - in 2796.
this means in bilbo's time it was in the hands of the dwarves.

[Kuruharan]

This is mere presumpsyion, but in the appendices it says they "sacked all the strongholds of the orcs from Mt. Gundabad to the gladden" so i assume they took it right at the beginning - in 2796.

That is a good point, one that I had forgotten.

However, I don't think that any Dwarves remained there to live, but that is just an impression. I think that if the Dwarves had taken and kept possession of Gundabad then Thrain etc. would have taken up residence there rather than returning to their wanderings.

Perhaps the structures of Gundabad sustained substantial, or even catastrophic, damage during the war and were uninhabitable, or because of its isolated location the Dwarves did not think that they could hold it.

But that is all speculation. It was certainly in the hands of the orcs in 2941, and I would believe that it had been that way for a good long time before that.

[Manwe Sulimo]

Sacked means they moved in, killed everyone, took everything, and left.

They didn't have the power to retake Mt. Gundabad. Remember, it was only around TA 2990 that they attempted to retake Moria. That group went against Dáin's wishes and was fairly small, so it stands to reason that they couldn't have tried to retake Gundabad earlier.

[Dain]

I see it this way: Gundabad was sacked by the rampaging Dwarf army that eventually ended up at the gates of Moria and fought the huge battle of Azanulbizar. The battle was so costly that the dwarves probably could not effectively settle most of the orc strongholds that they sacked. The Dwarves campaign was a war of revenge, not of recapturing lost territory. They probably just cleared Gundabad out and moved on, and then after the final battle, they did not have the strength to return and resettle... [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

[Finwe]

I agree with Kuruharan. When most of the Dwarves of the House of Durin went south to Khazad-dum, very few would have remained behind. Once the kingdom of Angmar became established, then it would have been relatively easy to conquer Mt. Gundabad. I'm sure that the same thing happened to Fornost.

[Kuruharan]

Linguistic Note:

I was doing some reading and found an interesting note.

gundu-"underground hall" from the root gunud which means "delve underground, excavate, tunnel."

The similarity to Gundabad is rather striking.