Atlas of Middle-Earth questions

[Kraas]

How accurate are these maps? Would Tolkien accept them?

Also, I have a question regarding Mordor's position. In the map of the First Age, the Inland Sea of Helcar is where Mordor is supposed to be. Then, in the map of the Second Age, the Sea of Helcar is completely gone, and Mordor is there. How did this happen?

 

[Hama]

The Atlas

I believe that the Atlas is quite accurate. Well it may not be exactly as Tolkien envisioned it, but the gray areas have been filled in by the cartographers. Tolkien enjoyed a sense of secrecy concerning many of the ways of the world (he never describes events in the far east, nor were his sketches of the area ever published - remember how two of the Istari, the blue ones, went into the east and no longer came into the tales) The maps are to scale and very detailed. Middle Earth went through a number of geographical changes over the years. The world was very simple geographically when there were the two pillars which lighted the world. In the numerous wars between Melkor (aka Morgoth) and the Valar the land was torn apart. The last time this happened was at the end of the second age when Beleriand was flooded and Numenor was lost under the sea. The lake that you speak of was part of the huge body of water by which the Elves were born. I don't have my books handy or I would give you their names. Mordor was not always an evil land (Utumno and then Angband were the fortresses of Melkor), and Sauron occupied it in the third age because it was surrounded by mountains. So the body of water was moved in the process of the changing landscape, probably by either Melkor or the Valar during the First Age although I can't swear to that.

 

[Halasían]

Being that the music of the Ainur was the creation, and Melkor started playing his own tune in opposition to the other Ainur, the forming of Middle Earth was affected. And afterwards much changed like when Melkor threw up the Mist Mountains to impede Orome, and then the overthrow of Melkor/Morgoth when the Valar intervened on behalf of Erendel which destroyed Beleriand and the north. And then the changing of the lands when Numenor attacked Valinor changed Middle Earth alot. So naturally there is inconsistancies in the maps.

I always wondered what was south of Far Harad, or east of Rhun, or to know more of the people of Khand. So much to dream about!

 

[Aldarion]

"A Tolkien Bestiary" by David Day contains an interesting and credible composite map of Arda.

 

[Taranir]

Black sea

The Helcar sea broke in the seas of black sea and Kaspian sea... I think

 

[Vardarianna]

How accurate are these maps? Would Tolkien accept them?

I find the maps quite well done, and the text information well thought out. I think Tolkien would generally accept them.

Something that always bugged me about one of the maps is the 1st Age one of Beleriand. On the right it has the Ered Luin (Blue Mountains) as a dual-ridged mountain range with a dwarf road through the middle between Nogrod and Belegost. Also, the positioning of those two cities seems way different than the Tolkien Silmarillion map. I'm curious where Karen Wynn Fonstad got her information, or if it was some 'artistic license' by way of her geologic descriptions?

 

[Amalcarin]

I find the maps quite well done, and the text information well thought out. I think Tolkien would generally accept them.

Something that always bugged me about one of the maps is the 1st Age one of Beleriand. On the right it has the Ered Luin (Blue Mountains) as a dual-ridged mountain range with a dwarf road through the middle between Nogrod and Belegost. Also, the positioning of those two cities seems way different than the Tolkien Silmarillion map. I'm curious where Karen Wynn Fonstad got her information, or if it was some 'artistic license' by way of her geologic descriptions?

When she worked on her atlas, the last four volumes of The History of Middle-earth had not yet been published, and the position of Nogrod and Belegost on Tolkien’s Second ‘Silmarillion’ Map, as all later changes to the original form of that map from the 1930s, was only revealed in one of them (The War of the Jewels).

 

[Vardarianna]

These are the two maps I have. First one is in the back of my 1977 Silmarillion hardcover book, and the second from my 1991 Revised Updated Atlas of Middle Earth. There is a considerable difference of the Ered Luin mountain range and the placement of the cities. Karen Wynn Fonstad would have had the 1977 map available to her.

 

[Amalcarin]

See here under Other versions of the legendarium. It seems that Karen Wynn Fonstad prioritized Tolkien’s own early map and texts over the map in the published Silmarillion, not having access to Tolkien’s own later map and texts which served as the basis for the map in the published Silmarillion.

 

[AaronAzrael]

For anybody interested, I also found these. I looked at the previous ones you guys posted here and didn't find these ones, sorry if this is not the case.
Arda in the First Age

Arda in the Second Age

Arda in the Third Age