Technology of level of ME

[afro-elf]

Someone mentioned this:

The draft of the mythology that had the numenoreans building iron hulled steamships, I believe. Cirdan stuck with wind power and good old fashioned know how.


I think in a Tolkien drawn picture of the Hobbit there is a wall clock.

I think in the Hobbit there is something about Orcs making " engines that go boom!"

There are things like Orthanc and the Palantir.

What cultures had what?

What about plumbing?

[afro-elf]

Hey, O' great moderator can you moves this to the ME forum?

[Sister Golden Hair]

Moving to the Middle-earth forum.

[Cirdan]

It seems to me that most of the technology is of the indivdual/inspirational type and not part of a technological tree of development. Natural gifts and skills supercede any formal knowledge and the most sophistcated technologies are lost over time. The third age is a relative dark age intellectually. The departure of the elves from ME is a brain drain.

Some conventional technologies seem to appear over time. THe mill uses water power and then seems to be converted to a combustion based power source (steam?) by Sharkey's men.

I don't think I've found there to be significant anomalous technologies. There is a reference to times (as in 12 noon) but Tolkien seemed to make an overt effort to relate time to seasons, phases of the moon, angle of the sun, and so on to relate relative time. This sort of time telling is a fairly ancient skill. Where there is a anomaly, such as skills in metallurgy, shipbuilding or masonry it is credited to a magical or even genetic, innnate ability.

Some anomlaies have historical backing, such as Gandalf's fireworks and Saruman's 'device of orthanc' as paralleled by the Chinese development of gunpowder without completely exploiting it. The Samurai developed steel but it wasn't widely used until the industrial revolution which parallels the smithies of ME.

I don't remember any glaring anomalies; I will look for that picture you mentioned.

[afro-elf]

As I mentioned above, there were clocks in the Shire but, I don't imagine them in Rohan.

Though I do not imagine clocks in Numenor or the Kingdoms in Exile, the Hobbits could not have built Orthanc.

I was just curious as what culture could do what.

[azalea]

As I continue to work my way through The Fall of Gondolin in Bolt2, I noticed that it says the soldiers they first in Gondolin wore steel armor, and I thought that odd because I always thought of steel as being a "later" thing. I guess I was wrong, but then it does later describe the armor made for him as being made of Gnome-steel (which I assume is mithril), so maybe it meant that in the earlier paragraph.

[Anglorfin]

Plumbing is not as anomalous as it might first sound. It is not as dated as many realize. I am going from vague memory now but I know I watched a NOVA program about archeologists finding evidence of "modern" plumbing in one large city of the early Mesopotamia region.

As for anything else, it would make sense that different cultures had their own strong points in the making of certain things. Dwarves and mithril, for example. Of course, any way you look at it technology of ME as a whole was still very early on in the mechanical period. In a world of magic the need for technology might be minimal and even limited to nothing more than a hobby.
What if Orthanc was not so much a technological feat as it was a symbol of forgotten magic?
Plus, Tolkien was a lover of nature, which in many cases is in sharp contrast to techonlogical advancement.

[Cirdan]

Orthanc is similar in effect to want the pyramids would have seemed like to crusaders or the mystery of Machu Pichu. Magical or mysterious skills attributed to a particular culture without evidence of the mechanics required. Researchers are skill trying to figure out how the pyramids were built without machines or how stone from a high mountain peak ten miles away was moved by relatively primative peoples.

[Athelwinde]

I believe right after stating that fact " and engines that go boom" The Hobbit says something like but they hadn't advanced that far yet. Might wanta check.

[Wayfarer]

The hobbit says that it's possible that goblins were to blame for many of the devices that have troubled the world... but they (or at least these particular goblins) hadn't advanced that far yet.

The dwarves made clockwork toys for Bilbo's party favors, didn't they?

[Anglorfin]

I just had a thought that I can't understand why didn't come to me sooner. In TTT the warriors at Helm's Deep are being troubled by a "black powder" that Saruman supposedly invented (gunpowder?). Is it just that Tolkien sees most technology as evil and chose to present the idea through Saruman? Another examplewhould be the felling of trees by Dwarves and Orcs to fuel their crafts.

[Wayfarer]

Ah! But you must notice that while Treebeard isn't exactly a fan of the Dwarves (and justifiably so), their use of technology wasn't exactly presented as evil. They were the skilled artisians, the craftsmen. What Sauron and Sauruman were doing was introducing mass production and heavy industry.

[Athelwinde]

Well, if you think about it Numenor had huge fleets of ships, and how do you gear up for war best? You mass produce weapons. All of the peoples of ME did it (except for Hobbits) so mass production was nothing new. Also, the black powder could have just been some mysterious magic made by Saruman himself.