How far back in time was the ⚔️War of the Ring?

[david_wendelken]

Based on Tolkien's writings, how far back in time did the War of the Ring take place? 10,000 years? 20,000? 100,000?

 

[Jimbo Baggins]

Elrond in the movie TFotR said, “I was there, Gandalf - ten thousand years ago.”

 

[david_wendelken]

A few observations:

1) The movie is not Tolkien's writings, and that's what I'm explicitly looking for as a source for the answer to my question.

2)To be clear, I want to know how far back the war of the ring was from today's date, based on Tolkien's writings.

3) Are you sure you heard the film correctly? Because in the film, Elrond was referring to when Isildur chose not to toss the One Ring into Mt. Doom, and that would have been 3018 years prior to the Council of Elrond.

 

[Jimbo Baggins]

I think I’m wrong. I got a case of the Mandela Effect. He said 3K

 

[Olorgando]

Based on Tolkien's writings, how far back in time did the War of the Ring take place? 10,000 years? 20,000? 100,000?

I think it was in a letter to a reader that JRRT imagined the Fourth Age beginning about 6,000 years before our time.

 

[david_wendelken]

I think it was in a letter to a reader that JRRT imagined the Fourth Age beginning about 6,000 years before our time.

Yes, that's it. Thanks! Found another reference to it!

 

[Eljorahir]

The state of technology might be a way to answer this fanciful question. Taking only technologies mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, we know there was steel, brass, oil-burning lamps, sea-faring ships, and umbrellas. So, The War of The Ring could be no further in the past than the advent of these here in the real world. I'm too lazy to look them all up, but here's one (from Wikipedia):

[The] Umbrella can be traced back to about 3000 years ago and had religious and mythological symbolism since its early history.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

On the other hand, Tolkien envisioned an eventual decline in later ages, with much knowledge being lost. We have many examples of this even in our relatively brief historical period -- Roman concrete and Damascus steel being a couple.

In any event, here are a couple of older threads that might be of interest, courtesy of EA:

https://thetolkien.forum/threads/what-era-in-history-equates.10212/

https://thetolkien.forum/threads/sixth-age-seventh-age-maps.28996/