Fourth, Fifth, Sixth (and Seventh?) Ages

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by JRR Tolkien - Letter 211

*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.

It's clear that Tolkien wasn't deeply invested in the 6000 years/Sixth Age idea, since he only mentioned it the once. But... given that he did mention it, and given that he's Tolkien, it's hard to imagine he didn't put at least some thought into it. With only two or three Age-defining events to get us from Aragorn to the present, he surely had something in mind, right?

Today I stumbled across Boris Shapiro's calendar discussion, which baldly states the following:

Originally Posted by Shapiro

Here only the common sence can help us. We know that each Age began and ended with events of global scale which importance for the whole Middle-earth deserved starting reckoning a brand new Age. Such events were the First Sunrise, the Fall of Morgoth, and the Fall of Sauron etc. Alas, we do not know for certain what did Tolkien thought about the Seventh Age, but I will proceed from the assumption that such an even can only be the Birth of Christ.

Tolkien was a roman catholic, and the meaning of Christmas for him cannot be overestimated. I am sure too that there will be no event of greater importance "tenn' Ambar-metta" and it deserves to call the Ages before it "the Elder Days". I am sure that Tolkien would agree.

I'm inclined to quibble over whether Tolkien would pin an Age change to the birth or resurrection of Christ, but I think Shapiro's point is well made. The Incarnation of the One is the only event in historical-time that gets a mention in the mature Legendarium (in the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, found in HoME X), so I agree that Tolkien would likely have used it.

The one thing I do object to is using it for the beginning of the Seventh age. That would mean Ages 4-6 span only 4000 years combined, with 7 at 2000 and counting; precisely the opposite of "they have, I think [read: state in authorial voice], quickened"! No - the "Old Hope" of the Edain must mark the end of the Fifth Age, and the beginning of the Sixth.

That leaves us a span of 4000 years for the Fourth and Fifth Ages, with the changeover somewhere around 2000 BC. I took a look at some of the historical (and "historical") events around that time, and there's something of an embarrassment of riches:

2181/2160 BC: Fall of the Old Kingdom of Egypt
2104 BC: Biblical Flood under the Hebrew calendar (Christian tradition places it ca. 2350 BC)
2091 BC: Traditional date for Abraham, the first Biblical Patriarch
2055/2040 BC: Restoration of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt
(1710 BC: Fall of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt)

With Tolkien being Catholic, I'm tentatively discounting the Flood date. Abraham I don't think would qualify by himself - compared to Biblical figures like Moses or Noah, he doesn't take part in epoch-changing events. But Egypt... I'm quite taken with Egypt.

Part of my liking for the idea comes from Letter 211 again. Not long before the '6000 years' footnote, Tolkien explicitly compares Numenoreans to Egyptians, and specifically the Crown of Gondor to the Crown of Egypt (with pictures!). If we assume that '6000 years' was invented as it was written - and there's no evidence that it existed beforehand - then the Egypt he was already thinking of could have worked its way in.

I've speculated before about Egypt as a successor-state to Gondor; now I'm suggesting that Tolkien thought the same way. Egypt is one of the most ancient states in the world, and I think Tolkien would have liked to imagine that Gondor continued, rather than just vanishing from history.

So, which collapse of Edainish civilisation would be the end of the Fourth Age? If we take 1AD as the start of the Sixth Age, the calendar when Tolkien wrote his letter would look like:

Old Kingdom collapse: 4th Age ca. 1882 yr; 5th ca. 2160 yr; 6th 1958 yr.
Middle Kingdom collapse: 4th Age ca. 2332 yr; 5th ca. 1710 yr; 6th 1958 yr.

Either scenario does not strictly follow "they have, I think, quickened". We could salvage the first by stretching the '6000 years' a bit, but we'd want to add at least 500 years. We could also salvage the second, by assuming the Seventh Age has already begun - but it would have to be at least 250 years before Tolkien wrote.

I think the Old Kingdom date is most plausible for Tolkien to have been thinking of; it ties in nicely with Abraham, so includes a 'religious change' like the banishment of Morgoth and the destruction of Sauron, and it doesn't require there to be an epoch-defining event around AD 1700, which are fairly sparse. There was also a climate-change event around the fall of the Old Kingdom, which also caused the Akkadian Empire to collapse. Interestingly, there was also a climate event around 6000 years ago, when the Sahara dried up - and one theory places the start of the Egyptian calendar in 4241 BC. Could it be as simple as Tolkien seeing this and going "sure, that can be the Fourth Age calendar"?

hS

[Huinesoron]

A little extra speculation:

The Seventh Age

Do Catholics believe in the literal End of the World, as seen in the Book of Revelations? Given the connection of the number seven to endings in both Christianity (seven days of creation) and Middle-earth (Durin the Seventh and Last), it seems feasible that Tolkien would view the Seventh Age as the last Age - the time of Armageddon and the Second Coming. He may have viewed the World Wars as harbingers of the End, hence his "or in the Seventh".

The Ages in History

That Egyptian calendar date lets us neatly pin down the canonical Ages of Middle-earth, and specifically to see what the world looked like back then:

6th Age: 1AD to present. We know this one.

5th Age: 2160 BC to 1BC. The Middle Bronze Age right through to the founding of the Roman Empire. An interesting historical coincidence is that the final end of the Egyptian kingdom occured in 30 BC, just before our epoch marker.

4th Age: 4241BC to 2160BC. Begins in the late Neolithic, with the Bronze Age and the origins of writing coming in the first 500-700 years of the Age. A lot of the world's oldest civilisations trace their beginnings to 4000-3000 BC. The Age started with a global drying event - aftereffects from the fall of Mordor? King Elessar Telcontar of Gondor lived until 4121 BC, with his heir Eldarion dying shortly before the 4000 BC mark. They predate recorded history by over 500 years.

3rd Age: 7262 BC to 4241 BC. The Neolithic Revolution reaches Europe at the beginning of the Age, spreading from the Near East. In Middle-earth terms, that's not really a spread: the Near East Neolithic was the Entwives at work, while the 'spread' was the Numenoreans arriving. The Shadow falls on Mirkwood around 6200 BC, roughly when Britain was split off from Europe to become an island. Towards the end of the age, Proto Indo-European becomes the primary language of Europe - pretty clearly, it's Westron, and will last until the late Fourth Age.

2nd Age: 10704 BC to 7262 BC. This Age marks the beginning of the shift from the Paleolithic to the Mesolithic in Middle-earth. The first agriculture appears, and the glaciers finally retreat from the North. Very little changes in most of Middle-earth during this period, though in the Near East technology begins to take off - probably Sauron at work. Jericho was founded at the beginning of the Age. Numenor, obviously, isn't in our geological record.

1st Age (of the Sun):11294 BC to 10704 BC. Morgoth's return sparks a brief glacial period, as one might expect (the Younger Dryas). The first evidence of warfare dates from this time, as does the second evidence of domestication of animals (sheep, goats, maybe pigs; dogs were MUCH earlier). At about this time, Hunter-Gatherers from the Caucasus region migrated into Europe - we know them as Caucasians, but the Legendarium calls them Edain.

Ages of the Stars and Trees: Unclear dating. For certain, the Years of the Trees include the warm period between the last Ice Age and the Younger Dryas (13000-11000 BC). Per the timeline, that's either the period after the Awakening of the Elves (using 'calculated Years of the Sun'), or the entire period of the Trees (if we take 'Valian Years' to equal Years of the Sun). Before that... well, before that you have tens of thousands of years of ice, punctuated by brief warm spells. For a planet that was at all times mostly controlled (openly or in secret) by Melkor, the Vala of the Cold Dark, that fits very well.

EDIT: Of course, this would mean there was no steel in Middle-earth prior to the end of the tales. If I were writing a story in this framework, I'd probably treat mithril as bronze, with bronzeworking being a well-kept secret of the dwarves and elves until the Fourth Age. Some named weapons would be of thunderbolt iron. Numenorean blades might be obsidian - their island is clearly volcanic, and obsidian can take a sharper edge than steel. Most other weapons would be stone - you can have hafted stone axes by the First Age no problem, and can even make a decent sword along the Aztec Maquahuitl model. And of course, stone arrowheads are known in English folklore as 'elfshot'...

hS

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I'm inclined to quibble over whether Tolkien would pin an Age change to the birth or resurrection of Christ

Well, Tolkien defined the boundaries between four Ages as the end of the physical presence of Satan, and the two reigns of a fallen angel. Surely the entry of Eru into Ea would be at least as significant?

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Well, Tolkien defined the boundaries between four Ages as the end of the physical presence of Satan, and the two reigns of a fallen angel. Surely the entry of Eru into Ea would be at least as significant?

Quibble was the wrong word - I should have said I'm uncertain between the two. Because yes, absolutely! But also, I feel like Ages end rather than beginning, so to speak, and the Nativity was a beginning. The crucifixion, the Harrowing of Hell, and the Resurrection, strike me as more of an ending scenario. My understanding is that, in the Christian view, is when Christ saved humanity from both their own sins and the Original Sin.

But I'm not sure that's how Tolkien would see it; I've never been Catholic! And with the Immaculate Conception of Mary in the mix, it's possible that the birth of Christ completely without the stain of Original Sin would mark an 'end' to Satan's dominion. And, equally, calling the Resurrection an 'end' when the whole point is that Christ didn't end might not sit well with Tolkien.

hS

[Galadriel55]

Is this thread inspired by your in-depth research into Tolkien calendars over on the Password thread?

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

6th Age: 1AD to present. We know this one.

Oh, but that is the most interesting endpoint, because we can actually decide that one without significant historical bias! Aside from Ages ending, rather than beginning, as you rightly note, the endpoint also is determined by the living people of that time. They are not determined post-factum by historians digging through old scrolls in Rivendell's or Gondor's libraries. This is the opposite of the retrospective way we tend to define historical periods in our world. The retrospective method carries bias: we judge events not by their immediate significance, but by their historical impact as it was relayed to us; and with our judgement we bring our modern-world-influenced criteria, which, much as we try, would not match up perfectly with the criteria of a person living thousands of years ago.

Which brings me to two points. Firstly, we, the people alive now, are in power to determine the boundary between the 6th and 7th Ages. Yes, we might not be the perfect generations for it, but we are probably close enough to still feel the impact of the Age change and to at least judge it with Age-appropriate values. So, do we assume we are in the 7th Age, or has that switch not flipped yet? If we are still in the 6th Age, then the discussion is moot because the critical events have not yet happened. So for the purpose of empty but entertaining speculation, can we assume that we are in the 7th Age now? Then we can go hunting for the endpoint of the 6th. Looking somewhat retrospectively, you could argue for a pattern of increasingly large scale wars in Europe and elsewhere from the 1800s up until WWII, and relative change in the organization of the world afterwards. However, the argument against that is that I am myself speaking with historical bias, and if the end of a horrific massive world-destroying war with promised peace to come was to be marked as the end of an Age by the people living then, it would have already been done after the Great War; the reason I do not agree is because I know that WWII is to follow not even a lifespan later, but you couldn't know that in 1918. What other major recent (well, "recent") world-changing events are there that could mark the change of an Age? ...Surprisingly, it took me this many mentions of it in one post to think of the current pandemic (*facepalm*). But the beginning of a new lifestyle imposed by an illness does not sound like the end of an Age, because it is not an ending and because it is negative (as William notes, the legendarium Ages end something bad to leave something hopefully more good). You could argue that we have witnessed the end of normal socialization, but I would rather not start an Age on such a pessimistic note and as a participating living individual actively vote against this choice. Nobody starts an Age with the Black Breath.

But the second implication that comes of trying to dissociate from the hindsight perspective is that neither the birth nor the death of Christ can mark the change of an Age, because from the perspective of the 1AD and 33AD people, there was no world-changing event. The significance we give to these events would not be given by the people living even just in Jerusalem itself, forget about the rest of humanity. While the significance is undoubtable to us in the far future (heck, we even count our years from it, humanity at one point really did decide Nativity was an Age-turning point!), there was nothing world-shakingly remarkable about it from the perspective of Christ's contemporaries. The world did not believe an Age ended, or began.


Having gone through this exercise, I now realize that we traditionally mark our Ages more by beginnings rather than endings. The start of warm climate; the beginning of European migration; the start of agriculture; the invention of some tool or technique, be it iron forging or the printing press. We put more emphasis on what makes a lasting impact with ripples to our present, we don't naturally judge it by things that ended and thus did not reach us. We still have some endings mixed in there: a fall of an empire, an end of slavery. But to my non-expert eye, it seems that we are missing quite a lot of endings. If our history was like Middle-earth history, our Ages would be punctuated by things like Neanderthals dying out or something. We call the Renaissance that because of what happened over the entirety of the time period and what followed, not because it marked the end of the Middle Ages. But it would be the opposite way around if we were to call the Ages out "in real time", so to speak: an end is more immediately recognizable than a beginning, because beginnings need time to evolve into significant change.


Saying all of that, I would be very happy if someone came up with an argument to reconcile the prospective and retrospective divide, or give some good counter-examples for the retrospect bias. My head would hurt a lot less if I could go back to thinking of Jesus as the start of an Age. But would equally be interested in hearing if you know of any examples when we as a society did call an Age-change in real time and it wasn't just people screaming about nothing.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Is this thread inspired by your in-depth research into Tolkien calendars over on the Password thread?

I knew when I started having to look up Middle Quenya trivia that it was going to be a strange experience...

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Saying all of that, I would be very happy if someone came up with an argument to reconcile the prospective and retrospective divide, or give some good counter-examples for the retrospect bias. My head would hurt a lot less if I could go back to thinking of Jesus as the start of an Age. But would equally be interested in hearing if you know of any examples when we as a society did call an Age-change in real time and it wasn't just people screaming about nothing.

I can fix Jesus for you, provided you're happy to accept the Resurrection as the Age-turnover - and provided you're happy to stop thinking of the living for a bit. In the Catholic view - which, as Tolkien was writing, I think we have to allow as "true" for this discussion - the day between the crucifixion and resurrection was the Harrowing of Hell. I had to check, but the Catholic version is indeed that Christ released all the righteous souls who had died before him from their torment, and let them into heaven. As a "dark angel is overthrown" moment, they don't get much more significant.

As you say, this wasn't exactly widely commented-on at the time - but Catholicism claims a line of authority going back to the disciple Simon Peter, who presumably would have known. Okay, it took 300 years for Christianity to become prominent in the Roman Empire - but how long did it take for anyone inland to become aware of Beleriand's fall? It doesn't have to be everyone knowing.

From a "northwest of the Old World, east of the Sea" perspective, I'll also note that only ten years separate the crucifixion and the Roman invasion of Britain. Alas, poor Hobbits...

On to the Seventh Age... from a Biblical perspective, a plague - or rather, beating one - might be more likely than you'd think. Pestilence is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, right? Defeating a Horseman seems significant enough to end an Age - which would make the turnover either Jenner's invention of vaccination in 1796, or Fleming's discovery of penicillin in 1928 (per Pratchett & Gaiman).

I would be inclined to go for the former, as 1796 also marks the point the Industrial Revolution really took off. The first high-pressure steam engine was built in 1797! This is very much an "ending/beginning" moment - the (or a) year when humanity finally broke free of the chains of nature.

Of course this is a very parochial and British viewpoint, but we are discussing Tolkien... ^_~

Working from this hypothesis (which Tolkien probably would not have come up with, safe to say), what do the Age lengths look like?

1: uncounted+590
2: 3441
3: 3021
4: 2201*
5: 2073*
6: 1763
7: 225 and counting

*Shifting to the formation of the Middle as the date here, to get the lengths to line up better and take into account the fact that the Fall of Numenor wasn't the end of the Second Age - the defeat of Sauron was, which happened after Gondor and Arnor were established.

~

The problem is that any more literal approach requires finding someone we can all agree is either a fallen angel in disguise, or a servant thereof. And, like, Hitler... but Tolkien was pretty dismissive of Hitler, and more inclined to think of the Great War. Given that the weapons of both wars are certainly Orc-work, it's also hard to view anyone involved in the same light as Aragorn, Gil-Galad, or Earendil.

Napoleon might be a viable contender - he certainly changed the world map, laying the ground for the formation of unified Germany, Italy, and America (by selling Louisiana). He took control of France in 1799, right about the same time as the Jenner vaccine - which leads to the amusing notion that he might actually be the grand heroic figure in this scenario! I bet Tolkien would have loved that...!

(I'm digging rather deeper than necessary into this aspect of the thing, because I'm mildly peeved to discover that Tolkien uses the word "iron" a lot in the Silm, and it's throwing off my Mesolithic Beleriand efforts.)

EDIT: Neanderthals, interestingly, died out around 40,000 years ago. The Long Timeline would place that right around the raising of the Lamps and the beginning of the Spring of Arda, which regrettably probably makes them creations of Melkor, animated by his will and perishing when he was banished.

hS

[Zigûr]

Interesting thread as usual Huinesoron

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

The problem is that any more literal approach requires finding someone we can all agree is either a fallen angel in disguise, or a servant thereof.

And Professor Tolkien considered the end of the Third Age to be the end of "incarnate evil" (as opposed to the evil that Men do), as WCH has said. Thus it would presumably take on less personalised forms.

Napoleon might be a viable contender

As an amateur student of Napoleonic history I feel like Bonaparte is far too mixed a figure to be either a servant of evil or a hero. However, Professor Tolkien did say that the successive leaders of Gondor would be like "Denethor or worse"; I feel like "Great Man history" doesn't mesh with a Tolkienian concept of ages, as he seemed to see the future as ever-blander mediocrity. I'm not sure we even get to slot Caesar, Alexander and the like in here, although the Gondor-Egypt concept does make the idea of a Ramesses or similarly significant pharaonic figure appealing.

I was going to suggest "abolition of slavery" or similar as an evil defeated, but it seems to me that the ends of Ages were the defeats of "similar, just lesser" evils, which did not really make the world a better place (in fact they tended to accelerate decline), just saved it from uncontested demonic tyranny for another few thousand years. So if successive Ages have ended in similar ways, it's difficult to say; it's so much harder to see. Professor Tolkien did dislike empires though, so their collapses might have merit: "I love England (not Great Britain and certainly not the British Commonwealth (grr!))" (Letter 53); "I should have hated the Roman Empire in its day (as I do), and remained a patriotic Roman citizen, while preferring a free Gaul and seeing good in Carthaginians" (Letter 77). Perhaps there's something there? I'm inclined towards Galadriel55's view of the Great War as an Age-turning moment.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

I was going to suggest "abolition of slavery" or similar as an evil defeated, but it seems to me that the ends of Ages were the defeats of "similar, just lesser" evils, which did not really make the world a better place (in fact they tended to accelerate decline), just saved it from uncontested demonic tyranny for another few thousand years. So if successive Ages have ended in similar ways, it's difficult to say; it's so much harder to see. Professor Tolkien did dislike empires though, so their collapses might have merit: "I love England (not Great Britain and certainly not the British Commonwealth (grr!))" (Letter 53); "I should have hated the Roman Empire in its day (as I do), and remained a patriotic Roman citizen, while preferring a free Gaul and seeing good in Carthaginians" (Letter 77). Perhaps there's something there?

In which case... the Great War. Multiple empires were broken up when it ended, notably the German and Ottoman; Ireland won its independence from English rule; and it was only a few years later that Britain's Dominions (Canada, Australia etc) were formally given the right to set their own foreign policy. You also have the establishment of the League of Nations (the proto-UN), which marks the beginning of a move towards international cooperation in non-military fields. (Well... sort of.)

It also feels right to make 1919 the end/start of an Age in a Tolkien context. Along with Christ, it's certainly the most plausible for him to have been thinking of (much more so than the smallpox vaccine!). And it's got the 'accelerated decline' element, too: the First World War marked the final end of the knightly/warrior form of battle, and enshrined the dominance of 'Orcish' mechanised war. A grim end to the Sixth Age, but the ends of the First and Second weren't particularly rosy either.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Zigûr

As an amateur student of Napoleonic history I feel like Bonaparte is far too mixed a figure to be either a servant of evil or a hero. However, Professor Tolkien did say that the successive leaders of Gondor would be like "Denethor or worse"; I feel like "Great Man history" doesn't mesh with a Tolkienian concept of ages, as he seemed to see the future as ever-blander mediocrity. I'm not sure we even get to slot Caesar, Alexander and the like in here, although the Gondor-Egypt concept does make the idea of a Ramesses or similarly significant pharaonic figure appealing.

And at this end of history, we are taking a more critical view of 'heroic' figures from our past. Was Alexander a glorious unifier, or a subjugator of ancient nations? He brought Egypt under Greek rule, establishing the Ptolemeic dynasty which would eventually yield it to Rome... there are no historical figures of the heroic nature of Aragorn, Gil-Galad, Earendil. For that, you have to turn to stories - Beowulf, Arthur at his best, the warriors of the Norse sagas...

Which, I suppose, was Tolkien's point all along. If Middle-earth was real, it was a time when the things we now tell in stories were actually true.

hS