XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: jon.lennart.beck.its.my.name@mail.its.in.danmark   
      
   "Stan Brown"  skrev i meddelelsen   
   news:MPG.2ab64cf7aee81be698da84@news.individual.net...   
      
   > On Sat, 8 Sep 2012 22:21:06 +0200, Raven wrote:   
      
   >>    Another explanation is that Sauron began to build a stronghold around   
   >> SA 1000 at that spur of  Ered Lithui.   
      
   > You have to get around the fact that the Tale of Years specifically   
   > says it was the Barad-dûr.   
      
      Yes.  And one way to get around it is to notice that Minas Tirith - "The   
   Watch-tower" - is in practice the name not only of the Citadel or the   
   tallest tower in it, but the whole city.  It may be that "Barad-dûr" is used   
   in the same way: not only The Dark Tower, but the whole stronghold, and   
   after about SA 1600 a mighty tower was built and became the chief and   
   largest part.   
      Or else the completed Barad-dûr was indeed one great big moated building   
   with spires and chambers and dungeons and walls and battlements, like in   
   Frodo's vision upon Amon Hen, replacing a less impressive stronghold that   
   preceded it in the same place; but the chroniclers didn't bother to   
   distinguish with different names as the nature of the stronghold changed.   
   Since SA 1000 it was Sauron's stronghold in Mordor, and the chroniclers   
   retained the name even as the place was changed, in the same way as very few   
   buildings in New York City now are the same as the ones built when the city   
   was first so named.   
      Even if Sauron changed the name, calling it Lugbúrz only after he   
   completed it about SA 1600, the chroniclers of the West might not have been   
   aware of it until then, or even until much later.  How did they at all know   
   that Sauron began building his stronghold there about the year 1000?  Surely   
   not by researching Aulë's archives for Sauron's petitions for building   
   permits, nor by asking him over a cup of tea.   
      Perhaps they deduced it by noticing when Mordor began to fill with orcs   
   and other fell creatures, and when they later realized who masterminded   
   this, guessed that this must also be when he began building Barad-dûr, or   
   whatever preceded it.  Or perhaps the information came from enemies whom   
   they interrogated, or spies.   
      Who among those under Sauron's sway would know such things?  Black   
   Númenoreans, aiding him, and then bringing tales of it to their communities,   
   whence they spread to Haradrim and Easterlings some time after?  Then the   
   gist of the tale might reasonably be expected to have spread westward, via   
   spies or even peaceful contact.   
      I don't know when Sauron first brought any Númenoreans into his   
   allegiance.  He became alarmed by the growing might of Númenor in 1000,   
   which is why he took Mordor and began to build Barad-dûr, so he hardly had   
   any such help then.  But he probably had some such servants 600 years later.   
   It is conceivable that some of them aided him in building the Dark Tower   
   then, since they were very skilled builders.  If so they would probably have   
   learned how old was whatever preceded the great tower that they helped to   
   build.  Then the gist of that tale would be spread to their communities   
   outside Mordor, and thence directly to Gondor or via several other roads to   
   the chroniclers who, story-internally, became the source of the Tale of   
   Years.   
      
   Kruk.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)