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76-454: A palantír ( IPA: [paˈlanˌtiːr] ; pl.   palantíri ) is one of several indestructible crystal balls from J. R. R. Tolkien 's epic-fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings . The word comes from Quenya palan 'far', and tir 'watch over'. The palantírs were used for communication and to see events in other parts of Arda , or in the past. The palantírs were made by

152-498: A "bizarre" Middle-earth including a Mordor where one can meet beautiful women: "Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor / I met a girl so fair / But Gollum, and the evil one crept up / And slipped away with her". The 2014 Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is a third-person open world action-adventure video game set in Middle-earth. In the city of Warsaw , Poland , an area in the south-western district of Mokotów , in

228-627: A Sauron-like power to observe the whole of Middle-earth. The sequence ends fittingly, in her opinion, with Mordor and the Eye of Sauron , bringing the viewer, like Saruman, to meet the Enemy's gaze. As a consequence of Jackson's exclusion of The Scouring of the Shire , Saruman is killed by Wormtongue much earlier (at the beginning of the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of

304-467: A frame suggesting an ornamental object. It has been pointed out that these mounts are identical to those of later globes also believed to be used for magic or divination, indicating that these crystal globes may have been used for crystallomancy . John Dee was a noted British mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I . He devoted much of his life to alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy, of which

380-681: A geologist explained, then flash to steam, causing an explosion. The name Barad-dûr is Sindarin , from barad "tower" and dûr "dark". It was called Lugbúrz in the Black Speech of Mordor, from lug "tower" and búrz "dark". The Black Speech (created by Sauron ) was one of the languages used in Barad-dûr. The soldiers there used a debased form of the tongue. In The Lord of the Rings "Barad-dûr," "Lugbúrz," and "the Dark Tower" are occasionally used as metonyms for Sauron. In

456-547: A mighty mountain-throne above immeasurable pits; great courts and dungeons, eyeless prisons sheer as cliffs, and gaping gates of steel and adamant..." Barad-dûr, along with the One Ring, Mordor, and Sauron himself, were destroyed on 25 March, a traditional Anglo-Saxon date for the crucifixion ; the quest to destroy the One Ring began in Rivendell on 25 December, the date of Christmas . In The Atlas of Middle-earth ,

532-449: A painting by Tolkien, however, the walls are of mainly grey stone and brick, and battlements, gates and towers are not visible. In The Two Towers Barad-dûr is described as "...that vast fortress, armoury, prison, furnace of great power..." The same paragraph goes on to say the Dark Tower had 'immeasurable strength'. The fortress was constructed with many towers and was hidden in clouds about it: "...rising black, blacker and darker than

608-707: A parallel with the history of Christian Europe from the Crusades against Islam onwards, and specifically with late 17th century history of Eastern Europe. The siege and relief of Minas Tirith, he proposed, resembled those of Vienna in 1683 , with the Turkish forces in the place of those of Mordor. The attack in both cases is from the East: over the Balkan hills or the Ephel Duath; across the plains of Hungary or Ithilien; over

684-764: A rushed exit of the army of Minas Morgul , thus letting the hobbits through the pass of Cirith Ungol with the One Ring, and so on until the quest to destroy the ring succeeds against all odds. The Tolkien scholar Jane Chance writes that Saruman's sin, in Christian terms, is to seek Godlike knowledge by gazing in a short-sighted way into the Orthanc palantír in the hope of rivalling Sauron. She quotes Tolkien's description in The Two Towers , which states that Saruman explored "all those arts and subtle devices, for which he forsook his former wisdom". She explains that he

760-632: A spirit and resumed his rule. Sauron's rule was interrupted again when his efforts to overthrow the surviving Men of Númenor and the Elves failed. The army of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men advanced on Mordor; in a great battle on the Dagorlad ("Battle Plain"), Sauron's forces were destroyed and the Black Gate was stormed. Barad-dûr was then besieged; after seven years, Sauron broke out and

836-719: A variety of tongues, and Orcs and Trolls , who usually spoke a debased form of the Common Speech . Within Barad-dûr and among the captains of Mordor (the Ringwraiths and other high-ranking servants such as the Mouth of Sauron ), the Black Speech was still used, the language devised by Sauron during the Dark Years of the Second Age. In addition to ordinary Orcs and Trolls, Sauron had bred a more powerful strain of Orcs,

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912-705: A vision of industrial environmental degradation , contrasted with either the homey Shire or the beautiful elvish forest of Lothlórien . Mordor was roughly rectangular in shape, with the longer sides on the north and south. Three sides were defended by mountain ranges: the Ered Lithui ("Ash Mountains") on the north, and the Ephel Dúath on the west and south. The lengths of these ranges are estimated to be 498, 283 and 501 miles (801, 455 and 806 kilometres) respectively, which gives Mordor an area of roughly 140,000 square miles (360,000 square kilometres). To

988-458: Is in this way giving up actual wisdom for "mere knowledge", imagining the arts were his own but in fact coming from Sauron. This prideful self-aggrandisement leads to his fall. She notes that it is ironic in this context that palantír means "far-sighted". Joseph Pearce compares Sauron's use of the seeing stones to "broadcast propaganda and sow the seeds of despair among his enemies" with the communications technologies used to spread propaganda in

1064-502: Is that while the stones show real objects or events, those using the stones had to "possess great strength of will and of mind" to direct the stone's gaze to its full capability. The stones were an unreliable guide to action, since what was not shown could be more important than what was selectively presented. A risk lay in the fact that users with sufficient power could choose what to show and what to conceal to other stones: in The Lord of

1140-625: Is the place where the One Ring was forged, and its magma heart is the only place where it can be destroyed. When Sauron is defeated at the end of the Third Age with the destruction of the One Ring, the volcano erupts violently. Tolkien stated in his " Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings ", intended to assist translators, that the phrase "Crack of Doom" derives from William Shakespeare 's play Macbeth , Act 4 scene 1. Tolkien wrote that

1216-639: Is the realm and base of the evil lord Sauron . It lay to the east of Gondor and the great river Anduin , and to the south of Mirkwood . Mount Doom , a volcano in Mordor, was the goal of the Fellowship of the Ring in the quest to destroy the One Ring . Mordor was surrounded by three mountain ranges, to the north, the west, and the south. These both protected the land from invasion and kept those living in Mordor from escaping. Commentators have noted that Mordor

1292-556: The Arthurian names like Morgana, Morgause, and Mordred; the Mor- element here does not mean "dark", possibly being connected to Welsh mawr "big", but Tolkien could have picked up the association with Arthurian evil. Tolkien, a scholar of Old English , was an expert on Beowulf , calling it one of his "most valued sources" for Middle-earth. The medievalists Stuart D. Lee and Elizabeth Solopova compare Tolkien's account of Mordor and

1368-719: The Battle of the Morannon , the One Ring was destroyed in Mount Doom, along with Sauron's power, Barad-dur, and the morale of his armies. This ultimate defeat of Sauron ended the Third Age. Gorgoroth became empty as its Orcs fled or were killed. The land of Núrn was given to Sauron's freed slaves. At the time of the War of the Ring, Sauron had gathered great armies to serve him. These included Easterlings and Haradrim , who spoke

1444-630: The Elves of Valinor in the First Age , as told in The Silmarillion . By the time of The Lord of the Rings at the end of the Third Age , a few palantírs remained in use. They are used in some climactic scenes by major characters: Sauron , Saruman , Denethor the Steward of Gondor , and two members of the Company of the Ring : Aragorn and Pippin . A major theme of palantír usage

1520-538: The Lowell Observatory , using a main mirror with spherical curvature , has the acronym PALANTIR. This stands for Precision Array of Large-Aperture New Telescopes for Image Reconstruction, and is meant to reference the "far-seeing stones in [The] Lord of the Rings ". Crystal ball By the fifth century AD, scrying using crystal balls was widespread within the Roman Empire and was condemned by

1596-642: The One Ring in Orodruin. He then set about conquering Middle-earth, launching an attack upon the Elves of Eregion, but was repelled by the Men of Númenor . Over a thousand years later, the Númenóreans under Ar-Pharazôn sailed to Middle-earth to challenge Sauron's claim to be "King of Men". Sauron let them capture him and take him back to Númenor, where he caused its destruction . He at once returned to Mordor as

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1672-697: The Second Age were saved by his son Elendil ; he took them with him to Middle-earth , while at least the Master-stone remained behind. Four were taken to Gondor , while three stayed in Arnor. Originally, the stones of Arnor were at Elostirion in the Tower Hills, Amon Sul (Weathertop), and Annuminas: the Elostirion stone, Elendil's own, looked only Westwards from Middle-earth across the ocean to

1748-431: The Second Age , Sauron began to stir again and chose Mordor as a stronghold in which to build his fortress. It was strengthened by the power of the One Ring, which had recently been forged; its foundations would survive as long as the Ring existed. Gandalf described the Ring as being the "...foundation of Barad-dûr..." The Dark Tower is described as being composed of iron, being black and having battlements and gates. In

1824-574: The Second World War and then the Cold War , when Tolkien was writing. A palantír appears in the film director Peter Jackson 's The Lord of the Rings films. The Tolkien critic Allison Harl compares Jackson to Saruman, and his camera to a palantír, writing that "Jackson chooses to look through the perilous lens, putting his camera to use to exert control over the [original Tolkien] text." Harl cites Laura Mulvey's essay "Visual Pleasure and

1900-566: The War of the Ring , Sauron attempted to storm Minas Tirith , the capital of Gondor, but was defeated by Gondor and Rohan in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields . The victors sent an army to the Black Gate to distract Sauron from the Ring. He responded by emptying Mordor of its armies, sending them to the Black Gate. As a result, the plain of Gorgoroth was left almost deserted and Frodo and Sam were able to travel across it to Mount Doom. During

1976-736: The Wolverhampton Art Gallery (2014) claims that the steelworks and blast furnaces of the West Midlands near Tolkien's childhood home inspired his vision of, and his name Mordor . This industrialized area has long been known as "the Black Country ". Philip Womack, writing in The Independent , likens Tolkien's move from rural Warwickshire to urban Birmingham as "exile from a rural idyll to Mordor-like forges and fires". The critic Chris Baratta notes

2052-835: The early Christian Church as heretical (magic had been condemned since the Apostolic Era with e.g. Chapter 2 of the Didache ). The tomb of Childeric I , a fifth-century king of the Franks , contained a 3.8 cm (1½ inch) diameter transparent beryl globe. The object is similar to other globes that were later found in tombs from the Merovingian period in Gaul and the Saxon period in England . Some of these were complete with

2128-648: The "senses of death, finality, and fate". Another possible source of the name, mentioned by Tolkien and discussed by the Tolkien scholar Jared Lobdell , is a pair of tales of supernatural events by the English novelist Algernon Blackwood , "The Willows" and "The Glamour of the Snow". According to the fanzine Niekas , Tolkien "more or less found Mordor" on a Mediterranean cruise in September 1966. When sailing past

2204-632: The Black Fleet approaching Gondor, without telling him that the ships are crewed by Aragorn 's troops, coming to Gondor's rescue. Shippey suggests that this consistent pattern is Tolkien's way of telling the reader that one should not "speculate" – the word meaning both to try to double-guess the future, and to look into a mirror ( Latin : speculum 'glass or mirror') or crystal ball – but should trust in one's luck and make one's own mind up, courageously facing one's duty in each situation. The English literature scholar Paul Kocher similarly noted

2280-579: The King ), while Gandalf acquires the Orthanc palantír after Pippin retrieves it from Saruman's corpse, instead of having Wormtongue throw it from a window of the tower. Further, Sauron uses the Palantír to show Aragorn a dying Arwen , (a scene from the future) in the hope of weakening his resolve. The software data-collection company Palantir Technologies was named by its founder, Peter Thiel , after Tolkien's seeing stones. An astronomical telescope at

2356-590: The Master-stone at the Tower of Avallonë upon Eressëa , an island off Valinor. The stones of Gondor were in Orthanc , Minas Tirith , Osgiliath , and Minas Ithil . By the time of The Lord of the Rings , the stone of Orthanc was in the hands of the wizard Saruman , while the stone of Minas Ithil, (by then Minas Morgul , the city of the Nazgûl ), had been taken by the dark lord Sauron . That of Minas Tirith remained in

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2432-513: The Morannon lay the Dagorlad or Battle Plain, and the Dead Marshes. The Ephel Dúath ("Fence of Shadow") defended Mordor on the west and south. The main pass was guarded by Minas Morgul , a city built by Gondor as Minas Ithil. The fortress Durthang lay in the northern Ephel Dúath above Udûn. A higher, more difficult pass, Cirith Ungol, lay just to the north of the Morgul pass. Its top

2508-618: The Narrative Cinema" which describes "scopophilia", the voyeuristic pleasure of looking, based on Sigmund Freud 's writings on sexuality. Harl gives as an example the sequence in The Two Towers where Jackson's camera "like the Evil Eye of Sauron" travels towards Saruman's tower, Isengard and "zooms into the dangerous palantír", in her opinion giving the cinema viewer "an omniscient and privileged perspective" consisting of

2584-620: The North American doom metal band Orodruin , are named after the mountain. In Peter Jackson 's film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings , Mount Doom was represented by two active volcanoes in New Zealand : Mount Ngauruhoe and Mount Ruapehu , located in Tongariro National Park . In long shots, the mountain is either a large model or a CGI effect, or a combination. The production was not permitted to film

2660-466: The Rings trilogy . In the first film, Sean Bean , playing Boromir , the warrior from Gondor, declares to the Council of Elrond that "one does not simply walk into Mordor". In the second, Andy Serkis 's digital Gollum guides Frodo and Sam to the Black Gate. In the final film, Frodo and Sam struggle across the shattered volcanic plain of Gorgoroth to Mount Doom, dressed as orcs, under the red glare of

2736-456: The Rings , a palantír has fallen into the Enemy's hands, making the usefulness of all other existing stones questionable. Commentators such as the Tolkien scholar Paul Kocher note the hand of providence in their usage, while Joseph Pearce compares Sauron's use of the stones to broadcast wartime propaganda . Tom Shippey suggests that the message is that "speculation", looking into any sort of magic mirror (Latin: speculum ) or stone to see

2812-450: The Rings: The Return of the King movie (2003) showed Barad-dûr as clearly visible from the Black Gate of Mordor, which is not the case in the book. Jackson portrayed Barad-dûr, like the other enemy fortresses of Isengard, Minas Morgul and the Black Gate, in "an exaggerated Gothic fashion" with a black metallic appearance. In The Lord of the Rings , the Eye was within the "Window of the Eye" in

2888-847: The Uruk-hai, and a strong and agile breed of Trolls, the Olog-hai, who could endure the sun. The Olog-hai knew only the Black Speech. Within Tolkien's fiction, "Mordor" had two meanings: "Black Land" in Sindarin , and "Land of Shadow" in Quenya . The root mor ("dark", "black") also appeared in Moria , which meant "Black Pit", and Morgoth , the first Dark Lord. Popular sources have conjectured or stated directly that "Mordor" came from Old English morðor , "mortal sin" or "murder". Against this,

2964-433: The adjective means "black"; Tolkien said that he liked the Italian language. Greek Μαυρός ( mauros ) means "dark, dim". He notes, too, the possible connection in Tolkien's mind with Mirkwood , the dark Northern forest, from Norse myrk "dark", cognate with English "murky". He adds that words like "Latin mors 'death' or Old English morðor 'murder'—further darkened the ring of this syllable." Finally, Fauskanger mentions

3040-613: The approaches to the Morannon [an entrance to Mordor] owe something to northern France after the Battle of the Somme ". The critic Lykke Guanio-Uluru sees Mordor as specifically evil, marked by Sauron: a land that is "dying, struggling for life, though not yet dead", evil being able to disfigure life but not to destroy it completely. It is contrasted, writes Guanio-Uluru, with the beauty of Lothlorien , and marked by negative adjectives like "harsh, twisted, bitter, struggling, low, coarse, withered, tangled, stabbing, sullen, shrivelled, grating, rattling, sad". In 1976, George W. Geib suggested

3116-422: The cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad assumed that the lands of Mordor, Khand , and Rhûn lay where the inland Sea of Helcar had been, and that the Sea of Rhûn and Sea of Núrnen were its remnants. This was based on a First Age world-map drawn by Tolkien in the Ambarkanta , where the Inland Sea of Helcar occupied a large area of Middle-earth between the Ered Luin and Orocarni , its western end being close to

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3192-511: The coming horror, "play[ing] on ideas of desolation, wintry landscapes and the supernatural", and like Tolkien giving realistic descriptions of nature. At the same time, they write, both the Beowulf poet and Tolkien incorporate "an element of fantasy": Grendel's moor is both full of water and a "craggy headland .. inhabited by supernatural evil", while Tolkien fills the landscapes in and around Mordor with "similar ambiguity and sense of unease". An art exhibition entitled "The Making of Mordor" at

3268-402: The contrasting environments of the well-tended leafy Shire , the home of the hobbits, and "the industrial wastelands of Isengard and Mordor." Baratta comments that Tolkien clearly intended the reader to "identify with some of the problems of environmental destruction, rampant industrial invasion, and the corrupting and damaging effects these have on mankind." The New York Times related

3344-414: The enclosed plain of Udûn. Sauron built the Black Gate of Mordor (the Morannon) across the pass. This added to the earlier fortifications, the Towers of the Teeth – Carchost to the east, Narchost to the west, guard towers which had been built by Gondor to keep a watch on this entrance. The passage through the inner side of Udûn into the interior of Mordor was guarded by another gate, the Isenmouthe. Outside

3420-421: The fortresses. At the time of Bilbo Baggins 's quest in The Hobbit , Sauron returned into Mordor from Dol Guldur , feigning defeat, but readying for war. The Council of Elrond decided to send the Ring to Mount Doom to destroy it and Sauron's power. It was carried into Mordor by two Hobbits , Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee ; they approached via the Dead Marshes, and entered by the pass of Cirith Ungol. In

3496-407: The future, rather than trusting in providence, leads to error. In Tolkien's fantasy The Lord of the Rings , the palantírs were made by the Elves of Valinor in the Uttermost West, by the Noldor , apparently by Fëanor himself from silima , "that which shines". The number that he made is not stated, but there were at least eight of them. Seven of the stones given to Amandil of Númenor during

3572-474: The grim land of Mordor to Tolkien's personal experience in the trenches of the Western Front in the First World War . Jane Ciabattari, writing on the BBC culture website, calls the hobbits' struggle to take the ring to Mordor "a cracked mirror reflection of the young soldiers caught in the blasted landscape and slaughter of trench warfare on the Western Front." In one of his letters in 1960, Tolkien himself wrote that "The Dead Marshes [just north of Mordor] and

3648-408: The hand of providence: Wormtongue 's throwing of the stone providentially leads to Pippin's foolish look into the stone, which deceives Sauron; and it allows Aragorn to claim the stone and use it to deceive Sauron further. This leads him to assume that Aragorn has the One Ring. That in turn provokes Sauron into a whole series of what turn out to be disastrous actions: a premature attack on Minas Tirith;

3724-412: The hands of the Steward of Gondor, Denethor . The stone of Osgiliath had been lost in the Anduin when the city was sacked. Gandalf names two of these as the Orthanc-stone and the Ithil-stone . A single palantír enabled its user to see places far off, or events in the past. A person could look into a palantír to communicate with anyone looking into another palantír. They could then see "visions of

3800-430: The head of the Great Gulf (later the Mouths of Anduin). Sauron settled in Mordor in the Second Age of Middle-earth , and it remained the pivot of his evil contemplations. He built his great stronghold Barad-dûr, the Dark Tower, near the volcano Mount Doom ( Orodruin ), and became known as the Dark Lord of Mordor. Sauron aided the elves in the creation of the Rings of Power in Eregion in Eriador , and secretly forged

3876-424: The neighbouring landscapes to the monster Grendel 's wilderness in Beowulf . In particular, they compare Frodo and Sam's crossing of the Dead Marshes and what Gollum called its "tricksy lights", with Beowulf 's "fire on the water"; and their traversal of the parched Morgai, full of rocks and vicious thorns, with Grendel's dangerous moors. Lee and Solopova write that the Beowulf description both emphasises

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3952-435: The opposite side. Unlike conventional lenses, the image-forming properties are omnidirectional (independent of the direction being imaged) This omnidirectional focusing can cause a crystal ball to act as a burning glass when it is brought into full sunlight. The image of the sun formed by a large crystal ball will burn a hand that is holding it, and can ignite dark-coloured flammable material placed near it. A crystal ball

4028-411: The performer answers audience questions by means of various ruses, are known as crystal gazing acts. One of the most famous performers of the 20th century, Claude Alexander , was often billed as "Alexander the Crystal Seer". Optically, a crystal ball is a ball lens . For typical materials such as quartz and glass, it forms an image of distant objects slightly beyond the surface of the sphere, on

4104-399: The philologist Helge Fauskanger notes that Tolkien had been using both the elements of the name, "mor" and "dor" (as in Gondor, Eriador) for decades before assembling them into "Mordor". Fauskanger writes that there are however several words that sound like "mor" with connotations of darkness. Italian moro (cf. Latin maurus , black, and Mauri , a North African tribe) means a Moor , and

4180-415: The phrase meant "the announcement of the Last Day" by a crack of thunder , or "the sound of the last trump[et]" (he cites the use of "crack" to mean a trumpet's sound in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight at lines 116 and 1166) at the Last Judgment as described in the Book of Revelation . He further states that "Doom" originally meant "judgement", and by its sound and its use in the word "doomsday" carries

4256-465: The river Danube or Anduin; supported by "wild Tartar horsemen" or "eastern cavalry"; the siege of the walls by "Turkish sappers" or Mordor's Orcs; relief by a battle further downstream, whether by Charles, Duke of Lorraine of Imre Thokoly 's army, or by Aragorn over the Corsairs of Umbar; and the breaking of the siege by an army from the north, whether Polish forces or the Riders of Rohan. Mordor features in all three films of Peter Jackson 's Lord of

4332-457: The southern part of Mordor, was less arid and more fertile; Sauron's slaves farmed this region to support his armies, and streams fed the salt Sea of Núrnen. To the east of Gorgoroth lay the dry plain of Lithlad. Mount Doom, Orodruin, or Amon Amarth ("Mountain of Fate") is more than an ordinary volcano; it responds to Sauron's commands and his presence, lapsing into dormancy when he is away from Mordor, and becoming active again when he returns. It

4408-405: The summit of Ngauruhoe because the Māori hold it to be sacred, but some scenes on the slopes of Mount Doom were filmed on the slopes of Ruapehu. In the TV series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power , Mount Doom undergoes a phreatomagmatic eruption in the Second Age . This was set off when orcs opened a floodgate , releasing water on to hot magma deep underground. The water would,

4484-461: The things in the mind" of the person looking into the other stone. The stones were made of a dark crystal, indestructible by any normal means, except perhaps the fire of Orodruin . They ranged in size from a diameter of about a foot (30 cm) to much larger stones that could not be lifted by one person. The Stone of Osgiliath had power over other stones including the ability to eavesdrop. The minor stones required one to move around them, thereby changing

4560-404: The topmost tower, whereas in Jackson's film trilogy the Eye appeared between two horn-like spires that curved upwards from the tower top. In Womack's view the 2019 biopic Tolkien explicitly connects Mordor to trench warfare: "riders become bloody knights; smoke billows and turns into the form of dark kings." The third verse of Led Zeppelin 's 1969 song " Ramble On " by Jimmy Page features

4636-543: The use of crystal balls was often included. Crystal gazing was a popular pastime in the Victorian era , and was claimed to work best when the Sun is at its northernmost declination. Immediately before the appearance of a vision, the ball was said to mist up from within. The use of crystal balls for divination also has a long history with the Romani people. Fortune tellers, known as drabardi , traditionally use crystal balls as well as cards to seek knowledge about future events. The process of scrying often involves

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4712-513: The use of crystals, especially crystal balls, in an attempt to predict the future or otherwise divine hidden information. Crystal ball scrying is commonly used to seek supernatural guidance while making difficult decisions in one's life (e.g., matters of love or finances). When the technique of scrying is used with crystals, or any transparent body, it is known as crystallomancy or crystal gazing . Crystal balls are popular props used in mentalism acts by stage magicians . Such routines, in which

4788-464: The vast shades amid which it stood, the cruel pinnacles and iron crown of the topmost tower of Barad-dûr." The structure could not be clearly seen because Sauron created shadows about himself that crept out from the tower. In Frodo 's vision on Amon Hen , he perceived the immense tower as "...wall upon wall, battlement upon battlement, black, immeasurably strong, mountain of iron, gate of steel, tower of adamant... Barad-dûr, Fortress of Sauron." There

4864-473: The viewer's mind. In The Lord of the Rings , four such uses of the stones are described, and in each case, a true image is shown, but the viewer draws a false conclusion from the facts. This applies to Sauron when he sees Pippin in Saruman's stone and assumes that Pippin has the One Ring , and that Saruman has therefore captured it. Denethor, too, is deceived through his use of a palantír, this time by Sauron, who drives Denethor to suicide by truthfully showing him

4940-418: The viewpoint of its vision, whereas the major stones could be turned on their axis. A wielder of great power such as Sauron could dominate a weaker user through the stone, which was the experience of Pippin Took and Saruman. Even one as powerful as Sauron could not make the palantírs "lie", or create false images; the most he could do was to selectively display truthful images to create a false impression in

5016-436: The volcano and the watchful Eye of Sauron from an exaggeratedly Gothic Barad-dûr, while the Army of the West gathers for the final battle in front of the Black Gate and witnesses the cataclysmic destruction of everything Sauron had built when the Ring is destroyed. For Jackson's film trilogy, Richard Taylor and his design team built an 18 ft (5 m) high miniature (" big-ature ") of Barad-dûr. Jackson's The Lord of

5092-444: The volcano of Stromboli at night, Tolkien said he had "never seen anything that looked so much like [Mount Doom]." The International Astronomical Union names all mountains on Saturn 's moon Titan after mountains in Tolkien's work. In 2012, they named a Titanian mountain " Doom Mons " after Mount Doom. The Swedish melodic death metal band Amon Amarth , whose lyrics deal primarily with Viking culture and Norse mythology, and

5168-410: The west lay the narrow land of Ithilien , a province of Gondor; to the northwest, the Dead Marshes and Dagorlad, the Battle Plain; to the north, Wilderland; to the northeast and east, Rhûn; to the southeast, Khand; and to the south, Harad . Not far from the Dead Marshes is another dismal swamp, the Nindalf or Wetwang, beside the Emyn Muil hills. In the northwest, the pass of Cirith Gorgor led into

5244-415: Was a look-out post, the "Window of the Eye", at the top of the tower. This window was visible from Mount Doom where Frodo and Sam had a terrible glimpse of the Eye of Sauron. Barad-dûr's west gate is described as "huge" and the west bridge as "a vast bridge of iron." In The Return of the King , Sam Gamgee witnessed the destruction of Barad-dûr: "... towers and battlements, tall as hills, founded upon

5320-417: Was among the grave-goods of the Merovingian King, Childeric I ( c.  437–481 AD ). The grave-goods were discovered in 1653. In 1831, they were stolen from the royal library in France where they were being kept. Few items were ever recovered. The crystal ball was not among them. The Sceptre of Scotland has a crystal ball in its finial, honoring the tradition of their use by pagan druids. It

5396-399: Was composed of three large regions. The core of Sauron's realm was in the northwest: the arid plateau of Gorgoroth, with the active volcano Mount Doom located in the middle. Sauron's main fortress Barad-dûr was on the north side of Gorgoroth, at the end of a spur of the Ash Mountains. Gorgoroth was volcanic and inhospitable to life, but home to Mordor's mines, forges, and garrisons. Núrn,

5472-524: Was defeated on the slopes of Orodruin. Sauron fled into Rhûn, and Barad-dûr was levelled. Gondor built fortresses at the entrances to Mordor to prevent his return, maintaining the "Watchful Peace" for over a thousand years. The Great Plague in Gondor caused the fortifications guarding Mordor to be abandoned, and Mordor again filled with evil things. The Ringwraiths took advantage of Gondor's decline to re-enter Mordor, conquered Minas Ithil , and took over

5548-481: Was guarded by a tower, built by Gondor. The route traversed Torech Ungol, the lair of the giant spider Shelob . Inside the Ephel Dúath ran a lower parallel ridge, the Morgai, separated by a narrow valley, a "dying land not yet dead" with "low scrubby trees", "coarse grey grass-tussocks", "withered mosses", "great writhing, tangled brambles", and thickets of briars with long, stabbing thorns. The interior of Mordor

5624-657: Was influenced by Tolkien's own experiences in the industrial Black Country of the English Midlands , and by his time fighting in the trenches of the Western Front in the First World War . Tolkien was also familiar with the account of the monster Grendel 's unearthly landscapes in the Old English poem Beowulf . Others have observed that Tolkien depicts Mordor as specifically evil , and as

5700-576: Was made in Italy in the 15th century, and was a gift to James IV from Pope Alexander VI . The Penn Museum in Philadelphia displays the third-largest crystal ball as the central object in its Chinese Rotunda . Weighing 49 pounds (22 kg), the sphere is made of quartz crystal from Burma and was shaped through years of constant rotation in a semi-cylindrical container filled with emery , garnet powder , and water . The ornamental treasure

5776-767: Was purportedly made for the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) during the Qing dynasty in the 19th century, but no evidence as to its actual origins exists. The crystal ball and an ancient Egyptian statuette which depicted the god Osiris were stolen in 1988. They were recovered three years later with no damage done to either object. Orodruin In J. R. R. Tolkien 's fictional world of Middle-earth , Mordor ( pronounced [ˈmɔrdɔr] ; from Sindarin Black Land and Quenya Land of Shadow )

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