Welcome to the New Middle-Earth, Pilgrim! - Page 3
© Michael Martinez
As Britain became England, the ancient Roman culture was pushed aside or abandoned and the Germanic invaders had to build up a whole new cultural heritage in terms of literature, scholarship, and architecture. As the breakaway English colonies formed their own nation, they struggled to retain their ancient English identity. For decades the wealthy families had sent their sons off to study in English universities. They waited for the latest fashions to arrive from England (and France). The newly organized United States, like the newly organized Gondor, had to build its own society almost from scratch.
North America was blessed with a substantial cross-section of younger sons and daughters who, leaving the English gentry and mercantile classes, brought some wealth but much knowledge and a determination to establish their families in the New World, to the colonies. They built up an educational, literary, and industrial foundation upon which North American culture was built by succeeding generations (all influenced by millions of immigrants from around the world).
Early Arnor and Gondor were cut off from Numenor, just as England cut off the United States. Elendil and his people had to build their civilization with fewer resources than the United States possessed. The nine shiploads of Faithful who survived the Downfall of Numenor may therefore have provided the frontier regions of Arnor and Gondor with a small but self-sustaining intellectual class. The "Rivers and Beacon-hills" essay all but says that the intellectuals -- the properly educated people who understood Quenya and Sindarin -- came last. It is therefore reasonable to infer that Elendil's arrival in Middle-earth unleashed a cultural revolution which forever changed the social and technological map of the northern world.
The significance of the late arrival of an intellectual class cannot be overemphasized. Everything would have changed. Whereas previously the frontiersmen eeked a living, possibly joining with the native clans of Gwathuirim and other people who inhabited the Ered Nimrais, Elendil and his sons brought a cadre of Numenorean purists to the shores who decided to rebuild Numenor in their own image. The "Rivers and Beacon-hills" essay implies they even retained some of Numenore's botanical traditions (for lack of a better phrase).
In discussing the meaning of the names Arnach and Lossarnach, Tolkien decided that the "loss-" referred to the blossoms of the fruit trees in the region, which was planted with orchards by the Numenoreans. These orchards provided fresh fruit to Minas Tirith even up to and during the War of the Ring. They had to be as important to Gondor as olive trees were important to the Greeks. The blossoms of Lossarnach were so varied and beautiful that the people of Minas Anor/Minas Tirith undertook "expeditions to Lossarnach to see the flowers and trees...."
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