The Lord of the Rings as [Greenlandian] Fantasy in The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien [edited title]

[Hriston]

Minas Tirith, while built into a hill, is described with the top being 700ft above the gate at the bottom.
The Argonath are described as 'massive'.
Barad-Dur is implied to match up to Minas Tirith, so be 700ft plus as well.

Not sure why nobody quotes the book, but assuming these are some of the structures @Ruin Explorer was talking about, can you say more about why these locations would be "trivial" to find if they had once existed?

Of course, we know Barad-dûr was destroyed along with the Ring which Sauron used to create its foundation, so I'm not sure what, if anything, of it was left.

I can imagine large stone structures, such as enormous stone statues and a 700' tall hill built-up with stone, having existed and yet remaining undetected below the waters and sediments of the Mediterranean or having been destroyed by earthquakes or some other cataclysm. The Pantelleria Vecchia Bank Megalith wasn't found until 2015, and it's somewhat close the where I would imagine the Gates of Argonath to have been. Meltwater pulse 1C, which occurred sometime between 6,200 and 5,700 BC, probably resulting from the final collapse of the Laurentide Ice Sheet of northeastern North America, represents a sea level rise of 21' in less that 140 years. In the Iberian Peninsula, near where I imagine Minas Tirith to have been, this event is linked to greater summer aridity that caused an increase in the frequency of fires It's also likely, IMO, that JRR Tolkien had in mind something like the Genesis flood narrative as a future event in his novel's setting. The Piora Oscillation (c. 3900-3000 BC) was a period of abrupt decrease in temperature and increase in rainfall which were believed to contribute to Babylonian and Hebrew flood myths. I imagine this is how the Fourth Age ended.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I can imagine large stone structures, such as enormous stone statues and a 700' tall hill built-up with stone, having existed and yet remaining undetected below the waters and sediments of the Mediterranean or having been destroyed by earthquakes or some other cataclysm.

That you can imagine this doesn't mean it's plausible. It means your plausibility calibration is profoundly broken. You clearly have relatively little knowledge or understanding of archaeology, underwater or otherwise, despite name-dropping stuff you found on Wikipedia. The idea that structures this scale and in such large amounts wouldn't discovered is simply laughable Graham Hancock nonsense.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

So to answer your question, the purpose, for me, of accepting the author's stated intention for his work to be set in our world in a reasonably well defined remote time-period, is it provides an enormous wealth of geographical and cultural/anthropological detail from our world that I can use to fill in the "blank spaces around the edges" and more fully imagine the world Tolkien describes, allowing greater penetration into the "unattainable vistas" that permeate his fiction. For me, this doesn't "destroy the magic". It increases my sense of wonder to imagine the fantastic elements of his stories inhabiting the same world as I do.

That's fair enough, but beyond mapping obvious Orientalist tropes onto Middle-Earth (Rhun=Hunnic Steppe; Far Harad=Africa or whatever), I'm not sure what that really involves. I mean Arda is definitely "our world" in as much as its calendar, seasons, celestial bodies etc.

So if you mean simply not including elements which are foreign to “our world” - excepting Tolkien’s own exceptions, like Hobbits and talking trees - then sure.

 

[Hriston]

Your point, as I understand it, is that while the description of the Red Book of the Westmarch is incompatible with the earliest forms of books we know of, that description is not supposed to be a factually correct representation of the book, but since the author wanted the readers to have a sense of familiarity with the setting, he modeled it on an actual medieval text, because he felt that the story was not dependent on the actual form of the book and the readers could more readily engage with a book that looked like books they were familiar with, rather than collection of wax tablets or scrolls which is a more likely form for a book back then*.

No, that's not my point. First of all, this is fiction. None of it is "supposed to be ... factually correct". Second, I don't believe JRR Tolkien had in mind some other "actual form of the book" departure from which would require any kind of rationalizing. He was just writing a story with a book in it, and what he wrote was how he imagined the book.

If you starting assumption is that JRRT not only did a language translation but also a cultural translation, changing the descriptions of items, culture, etc. from the form they had at the time the events had actually taken place in universe, to something that would be more familiar with what contemporary audiences expected for a medieval setting, why do you keep asking for quotes?

The concept of "events actually tak[ing] place in universe" is bizarre to me, considering we're talking about fiction. The reason I've asked for quotes is I'd rather discuss the actual text of the novel than contend with bald assertion about it.

The way I see it, the whole point of this line of discussion is whether the description in the text matches the archeological record.

Maybe it is. I wouldn't know, because I didn't bring it up. My assertion, based on Tolkien's letter, is about the time-period of the novel's setting, not about its conformity to an archaeological model of what material culture may or may not have been present at that time. My general point regarding that is the archaeological record only includes what was there. It doesn't tell us what wasn't there, except by inference.

*Technically, after the events of the book because we don't have any evidence of writing before 4000BC. Which to me is in itself enough to conclude the events of the book are not compatible with the archeological record. You just need a single counterexample, otherwise we end up with "What have the Romans ever done for us?"

If by "are not compatible with the archaeological record" you mean "couldn't have taken place at that time", then I disagree. While I agree the events of the novel would depend on the existence of writing systems which are posited by the legendarium to have been invented by the Elves in Tirion and Beleriand, places for which there is, of course, no archaeological record, sometime before say 13,600 BC by my reckoning, an absence of recognizable traces of such systems in the archaeological record is not proof that no such systems existed or were in use in Western Europe c. 6600 BC. It's likely there have been at least four independent inventions of writing by humans within the last 6,000 years. It isn't unthinkable to contemplate there may have been earlier inventions sometime in the previous 294,000 years of modern human existence for which we simply lack the evidence.

 

[briggart]

No, that's not my point. First of all, this is fiction. None of it is "supposed to be ... factually correct". Second, I don't believe JRR Tolkien had in mind some other "actual form of the book" departure from which would require any kind of rationalizing. He was just writing a story with a book in it, and what he wrote was how he imagined the book.

With "supposed to be ... factually correct" I meant within the context of the fiction. In other word, as you said, that Tolkien description matched what he imagined the events, places, items, ... to be. My statement is that his description of the book is an example of things that are incompatible with the historical record for the 10000-4000BC in Europe. Do you agree with this?

The concept of "events actually tak[ing] place in universe" is bizarre to me, considering we're talking about fiction. The reason I've asked for quotes is I'd rather discuss the actual text of the novel than contend with bald assertion about it.

I've seen "in universe" used several times on these boards to refer to the internal 'truth' and/or consistency of fictional work, so I assumed it was clear that by "in universe" I meant within the fiction of the story, not within our actual world.

Maybe it is. I wouldn't know, because I didn't bring it up. My assertion, based on Tolkien's letter, is about the time-period of the novel's setting, not about its conformity to an archaeological model of what material culture may or may not have been present at that time. My general point regarding that is the archaeological record only includes what was there. It doesn't tell us what wasn't there, except by inference.

This was my first post in this thread, I've bolded the last part:

Broadly speaking, Tolkien imagined his stories as part of our world legendary past, but his view of when exactly they fit into this past changed over the years. In the version of the mythology represented in Lost/Unfinished Tales, there were much closer connections to Earth actual history, with direct references to Babylon, Troy and Rome, with the latter invasion of Britain (Tol Eressea) triggering the last great migration of the Elves westward.

These ideas were later abandoned, in favor of pushing the mythology farther back into Earth's past, but this did not significantly alter the cultural, societal, and technological levels represented in the stories, which are definitely well beyond what is attested for real world Neolithic.

This is your reply to that post. I've bolded the first part, but it all seems relevant to me:

I'm not sure what "cultural, societal, and technological levels" you're talking about. Tolkien, as an author, describes very little about these things, so I'd appreciate more specificity about what you think is being represented. This is complicated by the fact that Tolkien's fantasy depicts different peoples at different "levels". The Elves, especially those who came from Valinor, have a very high level of culture influenced by divine tutelage. The men of Gondor have knowledge of engineering and other mental abilities that far exceed those of common men. The activities of these more advanced people's were mainly taking place in areas which are now underwater. Tolkien says very little about the cultural realities of the common folk of Middle-earth with which a valid apples-to-apples comparison could be made with the archaeological record. Then there's the problem that what's "attested" can't possibly be the sum total of everything that has ever existed. There has to be some room for imagination, especially in a fantasy where that's kind of the point.

From the beginning, our discussion has been centered on whether LotR descriptions match the historical record. I said I believed they didn't in my first post, and you asked clarification on that in your reply, while also pointing out while a direct comparison with archeological record would be complicated. And you repeatedly kept engaging with me on this aspect, specifically on whether the examples from the book I and others mentioned conformed with what we know of real cultures from the time.

But to be clear, I was just referring to the exchanges between you and me, not necessarily to your OP or the thread as a whole.

If by "are not compatible with the archaeological record" you mean "couldn't have taken place at that time", then I disagree. While I agree the events of the novel would depend on the existence of writing systems which are posited by the legendarium to have been invented by the Elves in Tirion and Beleriand, places for which there is, of course, no archaeological record, sometime before say 13,600 BC by my reckoning, an absence of recognizable traces of such systems in the archaeological record is not proof that no such systems existed or were in use in Western Europe c. 6600 BC. It's likely there have been at least four independent inventions of writing by humans within the last 6,000 years. It isn't unthinkable to contemplate there may have been earlier inventions sometime in the previous 294,000 years of modern human existence for which we simply lack the evidence.

With the possible exception of mathematics and logic, all human knowledge of our world is empirical. We observe a finite number of events, we notice some patterns in these events, and extrapolate these patterns to some "truths" about our reality. Periodically we find new evidence that leads us to revising these "truths", but until we do our best option is considering our current understanding as the best description of reality, while being open to the possibility that description could change in the future.

So my position would be better defined as: "couldn't have taken place at that time" means "are not compatible with the archaeological record". I agree that we cannot prove that writing was invented few thousand years before what's currently believed. Or the wheel. Or copper smelting. Or horse domestication. And so on. But we are not talking about only one of these things in isolation: all of these things need to have happened way before what's currently attested for the events of LotR to have happened during the time frame Tolkien posited in his letter.

That is clearly not "impossible" in the same way that it is impossible that a prime number also be a square of an integer, it's just that the archeological community doesn't have any remote evidence of something like that happening. You are the one making a pretty bold statement, and your only argument in its support is: "well, we cannot prove that it didn't happen". Which is the same argument in favor of Dragon, Elves and Dwarves having existed, or Neanderthal having landed on the Moon. To be clear, I consider these to be far less likely than (basically) European Neolithic having ended a couple thousand years earlier than we currently think, but this just show that argument by itself is not a very informing.