Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered in copy of Lord of the Rings
1–10 of 36 posts
Re: Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered in copy of Lord of the Rings
#2Minis Tirith ... Ravenna?! It's flat there:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ravenna+RA,+Italy/@44.3775...
Maybe he was thinking of http://www.incomingpartners.it/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sa... San Marino.
Re: Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered in copy of Lord of the Rings
#3Minis Tirith ... Ravenna?! It's flat there: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ravenna+RA,+Italy/@44.3775... Maybe he was thinking of http://www.incomingpartners.it/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sa... San Marino.
Perhaps it was the history of re-conquer that inspired it, or something else? (The walls have no relation...)
Re: Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered in copy of Lord of the Rings
#4Minis Tirith ... Ravenna?! It's flat there: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ravenna+RA,+Italy/@44.3775... Maybe he was thinking of http://www.incomingpartners.it/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sa... San Marino.
Ravenna is where the Western Roman capital moved to (402-476) in an effort to be more easily defended; likewise the capital of Gondor was moved from Osgiliath to Minas Tirith to more easily defend it.
Re: Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered in copy of Lord of the Rings
#5"The novelist also uses Belgrade, Cyprus, and Jerusalem as other reference points, and according to Blackwell’s suggests that “the city of Ravenna is the inspiration behind Minas Tirith - a key location in the third book of the Lord of The Rings trilogy”."
Fun fact: Belgrade (Београд), capital of Serbia, literary means "the white city" in Serbian.
Re: Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered in copy of Lord of the Rings
#6A high resolution stitched map: http://i.imgur.com/lWAFuHe.jpg
Made with pictures from here: http://www.citylab.com/design/2015/10/a-map-of-middle-earth-...
Re: Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered in copy of Lord of the Rings
#7"It shows what Blackwell’s called “the exacting nature” of Tolkien’s creative vision: he corrects place names, provides extra ones, and gives Baynes a host of suggestions about the map’s various flora and fauna."
You've got to respect the man for his attention to detail. To the outsider it might seem as if it were near insanity levels (fully creating multiple language families for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_constructed_by_J._R....). But you feel the histories and mythology behind the languages in the works. There's just an amazing vitality and realism in his universe that I've personally never felt in another work of fantasy as good as those other books might be.
I read a biography about him many years ago, and if I remember correctly he wrote the stories for the languages not the other way around, since he discovered that his languages needed a mythology and history in order to be realistic.
Re: Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered in copy of Lord of the Rings
#8Minis Tirith ... Ravenna?! It's flat there: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ravenna+RA,+Italy/@44.3775... Maybe he was thinking of http://www.incomingpartners.it/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sa... San Marino.
Probably referencing this fortified town there:
http://media.royalcaribbean.com/content/shared_assets/images...
Which TOTALLY makes sense.
Re: Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered in copy of Lord of the Rings
#9Minis Tirith ... Ravenna?! It's flat there: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ravenna+RA,+Italy/@44.3775... Maybe he was thinking of http://www.incomingpartners.it/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sa... San Marino.
Probably referencing this fortified town there: http://media.royalcaribbean.com/content/shared_assets/images... Which TOTALLY makes sense.
That's what I just wrote: San Marino. That's what that picture is of, not Ravenna.
Of course, it's not your fault that Google returns the wrong pictures, but definitely a different place.
Re: Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered in copy of Lord of the Rings
#10Minis Tirith ... Ravenna?! It's flat there: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ravenna+RA,+Italy/@44.3775... Maybe he was thinking of http://www.incomingpartners.it/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sa... San Marino.
Probably referencing this fortified town there: http://media.royalcaribbean.com/content/shared_assets/images... Which TOTALLY makes sense.
That's not Ravenna, that's the castle atop mount Titano in San Marino.