Hobbit Hole [ Edited ]

[lorien]

Somewhere Ardo (and now I can't find it), you were talking about people building Hobbit Holes. Well, I just found this on YouTube. I hope you can view it. I know you are on dial up and it might be too slow:

Building a Hobbit Hole

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uirZizU8ElE&NR=1
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9KFWoN-559I

Message Edited by lorien on 04-12-2008 10:04 PM

[oldBPLstackden…]

Good Morning, lorien ...

I appreciate the tip-off ( on this "YouTube" hobbit-hole feature ) - I did just try receiving it, but with our antiquated Dial-up service on this 'Puter, it does come in jerkily and with agonizing slowness. So I gave up after a while, but I still got to take a bit of a gander at what was going on there... It appears like some folks are actually realizing for themselves the same day-dream that I have entertained for many years...I might be able to find some still photographs of this same subject on the Web somewhere...

Where I was talking about it before was mainly in the "Tolkien's Influence On Popular Culture" Thread, I'm pretty sure - and TiggerBear and I went back and forth for a few postings about the subject - I also brought it up again here at The Prancing Pony, in relation to that "Storybook Style" book ( about buildings ) I had mentioned...

Incidentally, after looking at my last previous posting, I'm beginning to think I might need an "Intervention"

in order to pry me away from my "Parenthesis Addiction". ----

"Ardo" "Whortleberry"

[oldBPLstackden…]

Greetings, Salutations, and Good Afternoon To All,  Etcetera, Etcetera, Etcetera...

I have been finding some neat stuff on the "Net" concerning real life hobbit holes - one of the most exciting, I thought, was the case of a family in Wales that built a hobbit-hole to actually live in ( and, no, TiggerBear, I hadn't forgotten your tale of the "Hippie Hobbit-Hole" in Virginia ) - I will attempt to "Imbed" this link:

http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htm

okay, I hope I did that right. Actually, I really enjoyed the illustration that came with the article in the

"Emagazine" ( which is what I assume it must be ) through which I stumbled upon this particular site.

The article was in "insidecatholic.com" - the April 17th, 2008 edition, under "the inside blog" department.

There was an address for that particular site, as well, but it was much more long and complicated, and I don't think I could have "imbedded" it eggs-ack-tally correctly...         Ardo W. of Hobottle

[TiggerBear]

Ardo
wow I do love these. Great links from both of you.

[oldBPLstackden…]

TiggerBear ---

I thought perhaps our coversation about "Continental Drift" ( which had snuck into the "Hobbit Movie Thread" ) might have been getting a little "Off-Topic" - so I thought I would continue it down here

 at The Prancing Pony. ---

I went ahead and looked up some info on the subject myself ( including some "animations" ) after your last mention of it the other night. ---

It's also fascinating to think that even before "Pangea" ( the "Super-Continent" ) began to break apart and spread itself around the Globe, there had been bits and pieces of "free-floating" geologic "crud" wandering around all over the place - that had then come together and congealed to form the Super-Continent to begin with. ---

And, on top of that, Pangea was not the only Super-Continent, but the latest in a series in a cycle of Super-Continents forming and then de-forming and re-forming again. ( over billions of years, even ) ---

I even thought I heard something once ( unless I am mistaken in this ) about how some very ancient geologic matter in our area ( of Northern California ) was related to some ancient geologic matter in the British Isles area - I guess, maybe, somehow through all the coniptions and gyrations of the Continents and bits of Continents ( over millions and millions of years ) this somehow turned out.---

Ardo Whortleberry

[TiggerBear]

Yeah I got hooked on the stuff, when the first globe I was given was a stick it type. My 3 year old brain keep trying to assemble it as a puzzle.

[oldBPLstackden…]

Good Morning, TiggerBear ---

Yes, it is a fascinating subject - and not that long ago, so little was known about it.

The theory had been around, of course, but had remained unaccepted right up into the 1960s.

We have somewhere around here a Time/Life Book ( published circa 1962 ) - "The Earth", which mentions the Continental Drift Theory, but then dismisses the entire idea as faintly ridiculous. After all, what Force of Nature could be powerful enough to push entire continents around? ---

By the end of the decade, the theory was beginning to gain more recognition. Since then, there has been this explosion of knowledge about this. Before that, except for the rising and falling of oceans and "inland seas", it was assumed that all the continents had been existing in much the same status they are in today, over millions and millions of years...                    Ardo

[Dagor]

The theory of continental drift has been around for quite some time. It first got serious academic attention back in the 1920s and was the topic of discussion in 1923 at a conference in Hull, Great Britain. Wegner's CD opus was highly debated and saw heavy newspaper reportage in 1928 -- Tolkien may have read something about CD at this time. Somewhere in the Letters, there is buried a statement from Tolkien about continental drift and "modern" theories of mountain building. I'm searching for that Letter now, but, sigh, it does not show up in the woefully inadequate index of Letters. I vaguely recall it as being dated to the 1940s while JRRT was writing LotR, so it is possible that continental drift theories may have influenced his own ME ideas of geology -- I'll do some more research on this topic.

Hmm, just found one bit of direct evidence regarding CD and Tolkien, he did know about the ancient super continent of Gondwana-land, but, this is in a very late context, a letter dated June 1971. (Letter #324, pp 409-10)

Message Edited by Dagor on 05-03-2008 12:54 PM

[Fanuidhol]

---

Dagor wrote:
The theory of continental drift has been around for quite some time. It first got serious academic attention back in the 1920s and was the topic of discussion in 1923 at a conference in Hull, Great Britain. Wegner's CD opus was highly debated and saw heavy newspaper reportage in 1928 -- Tolkien may have read something about CD at this time. Somewhere in the Letters, there is buried a statement from Tolkien about continental drift and "modern" theories of mountain building. I'm searching for that Letter now, but, sigh, it does not show up in the woefully inadequate index of Letters. I vaguely recall it as being dated to the 1940s while JRRT was writing LotR, so it is possible that continental drift theories may have influenced his own ME ideas of geology -- I'll do some more research on this topic.

Hmm, just found one bit of direct evidence regarding CD and Tolkien, he did know about the ancient super continent of Gondwana-land, but, this is in a very late context, a letter dated June 1971. (Letter #324, pp 409-10)

Message Edited by Dagor on 05-03-2008 12:54 PM

---

Is it letter #169 you might be thinking of, written in Sept. 1955 when RotK was nearing publication?

"I do sometimes wish that I had made some sort of agreement between the imaginations or theories of the geologists and made my map a little more possible."

Kinda vague, but...

Fan

[TiggerBear]

Yes, it is a fascinating subject - and not that long ago, so little was known about it.
The theory had been around, of course, but had remained unaccepted right up into the 1960s.
We have somewhere around here a Time/Life Book ( published circa 1962 ) - "The Earth", which mentions the Continental Drift Theory, but then dismisses the entire idea as faintly ridiculous. After all, what Force of Nature could be powerful enough to push entire continents around? ---
By the end of the decade, the theory was beginning to gain more recognition. Since then, there has been this explosion of knowledge about this. Before that, except for the rising and falling of oceans and "inland seas", it was assumed that all the continents had been existing in much the same status they are in today, over millions and millions of years... Ardo
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not that long ago, but well within the span of my lifetime.
Its good to know Tolkien knew about it if only casually. Makes me wonder if Howard was reading up on it too.

[oldBPLstackden…]

It would certainly seem very plausible that Howard had studied up on Wegener's theories - and it looks like the scientists ( in turn ) must have been "studying up" on Howard, themselves ---

This is from the UC Berkeley Paleontology Department:

[  Cimmerian terranes - n. An archipelago of small landmasses that developed in tropical and subtropical lattitudes on the eastern side of Pangea during the Triassic ( period of 248-206 million years ago )- blocks that comprised it include modern Turkey, Iran, Afghaniastan, Tibet and Malaysia; also called Cimmeria. ]

I would assume this was named in an homage to Mr. Howard and his Fantasy Novels...           Ardo

[TiggerBear]

It's hard to say. An excellently informed writer for a man with only a high school education.

[Dagor]

Hi Fan! Thanks!

Hmm, #169 is, I agree, a bit vague, not the text I think I recall, but #169 still stands as evidence that JRRT was concerned with getting his own maps "right," in terms of agreement with the latest interpretations of geological reality. I am paging through all the Letters now, finding again all sorts of interesting stuff, but so far, not the quote I recall... Wondering now if it was from some note of Chris T's, or even in a book like Fonstad's "Atlas of Middle-earth?" I'll keep searching.

Ardo, Cimmeria was an ancient term for the Scythian lands and peoples of central Asia, and the Turkic speaking tribes that later lived there. Sargon II fought them, and sometimes the name shows up as Gummeri in the ancient cuneiform texts. Howard picked up the term from his readings of Herodotus, so I'm not sure if the name for the geographical entity you mention was taken from ancient history directly, or was taken from Howard's version secondarily in tribute to some mighty fine stories.

[oldBPLstackden…]

Good Morning, Dagor ( and Everyone ) ---

You suprised me again, when you brought up the consideration of how Tolkien himself might have felt about the Continental Drift Theory ( that particular thought hadn't even occured to me ) - the topic/discussion was sort of a "spin-off" of some thoughts I had expressed, connected to the new "Hobbit" movies - which I took over here, where it wound up going down this avenue. Which is all very good, anyway, as all these matters seem to wind up being all interconnected, anyway. --- 

I guess we may never know the true answer to my "Cimmeria" speculation - unless we were able to talk to one of the scientists who was in charge of naming these Pangean sub-parts ( and maybe some of the other Super-Ancient Super-Continents and their various components of migrating land masses ) --- Unless there is a record somewhere of when and how this was accomplished? ---

Ardo

[oldBPLstackden…]

Post-Script ---

But of course -it makes perfect sense to connect JRRT to the discussion of this topic - considering how he felt his own Middle-earth was a representation of part of our own real Earth - but set in a very ancient age ... Ardo

[TiggerBear]

'Hobbit' Skeleton Mystery Solved.htm
I've been trying to get this to work, here goes.


Nope that didn't work either. Sorry guys I'll keep trying.

Message Edited by TiggerBear on 05-12-2008 10:01 PM

[oldBPLstackden…]

Hi, TiggerBear! ---

I just tried entering "hobbit skeleton" on my "Search Engine" - and I see there are dozens & dozens of articles about it all -- ( 576 Thousand hits, to be exact  ) -- I'm not sure which specific article or site you might be referring to - but I did notice there was an archaeology site ( from the U.K. ) that doubted the veracity of the age of the "hobbit bones" - something about "Did this 'hobbit' have a root-canal?" --- Anyway - I'm going to go back and check some of these articles out. ( I have a feeling some of this might have been discussed in that "Hobbit People Of Indonesia" Thread before - but I never did get around to looking at that Thread. ) - Ardo

[TiggerBear]

Yeah I can't get the link to work. But if you type that line with that spelling in a search engine will pull up that exact article.

[lorien]

This might be a more reliable source.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=flores-hobbit-root-canal

Apparent the guy making this claim never saw the bones.
-----------
Henneberg says he initially made these and other observations three years ago, but did not want to go public until he had a chance to verify them with the original remains. He has yet to see the bones, but decided to air his theory because it has become increasingly apparent that he may never get the opportunity. (A request to do so was denied.)
-----------

Click next on the image to see the CT scans.

It is interesting that they were exactly hobbit sized (one meter tall). I think they have found nine now.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=more-bones-support-mini-h

Now do you suppose that Tolkien knew something that we didn't and that he actually had a Red Book of Westmarch that he based his tales on. Most likely it was in fragments, as most of these things are, so he could only used what he had as a bases for constructing his own "invented" mythology.

And of course there were oliphants at that time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth

An end of one of the ice ages would explains what happened to Beleriand when the glaciers melted.

All we really have left of the time of Aragorn are tales about places like Troy. Though I'm more inclined to place Minas Tirith as Mycenae.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenae

Or maybe it was Minoan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization.

Now I wonder if any copyright laws were broken by basing fiction on any of these places?

Message Edited by lorien on 05-13-2008 09:42 PM

[TiggerBear]

Good links lorien

If you can find the one I can't get up here. It's source is the archaeologists doing the current excavation. Wish they hurry up and publish their findings.

Message Edited by TiggerBear on 05-14-2008 09:49 PM