The Fall of Numenor

Of all the stories that Tolkien created, one links most profoundly the great mythology of The Silmarillion with the legendary romance of The Lord of the Rings, and that is the story of the great island of Numenor.

The Numenoreans in their heyday included Men who were explorers. Some sailed in great ships to the East, discovering the lands of Middle-earth where much of The Lord of the Rings would be played out in a later age. Other Numenoreans were arrogant and intent on contesting the will of the great power that dwelt in the far West. For this disobedience the whole island was destroyed, sunk beneath the waves in a cataclysmic event that changed the shape and form of Middle-earth.

Those Numenoreans, or Dunedain (Men of the West), who escaped the destruction sailed to the lands already discovered and settled there. The last survivors of this race participate in the battles of the Third Age. Without their seafaring skill none of the race of Numenor would have survived.

Fragments of the story of Numenor and its inhabitants can be found throughout The Lord of the Rings, but for the Drowning of Numenor see The Akallabeth, in The Silmarillion,