Númenor

The Land of Gift

After the War of Wrath the Valar resolved to reward the Edain, the three houses of Men who had fought beside the Eldar against Morgoth. They could not give them the Undying Lands, for Men were mortal, but they raised a new land out of the Sea, nearer to Aman than to Middle-earth, and the Númenóreans were granted a lifespan several times that of other Men, freedom from sickness, and skill of mind and body beyond their kin. The Eldar called the island Andor, the Land of Gift, and Elenna, the Starwards, because the star of Eärendil hung in the west to guide the Edain to it. Elros, Eärendil's son, who had chosen a mortal life, led them across the Sea and became the first king, Tar-Minyatur, reigning for four hundred and ten years in a life of half a thousand.

The shape of the land

Númenor was shaped like a five-pointed star. The central region, the Mittalmar, was a raised inland of grass and downs, and from it five promontories ran out to the Sea: the rocky Forostar in the north, the fertile Andustar in the west, the Hyarnustar and Hyarrostar in the south, and the grain-lands of the Orrostar in the east. In the middle of the Mittalmar rose the Meneltarma, the Pillar of Heaven, whose summit was the Hallow of Eru, the one holy place of the Númenóreans, where no temple stood and only the king spoke. At its southern foot lay the Noirinan, the Valley of the Tombs of the kings, and to the east in the district called Arandor stood Armenelos, the city of the kings, and the great haven of Rómenna. The western coast held Andúnië, the haven that faced the sunset, and Eldalondë amid the fragrant trees of Nísimaldar, where the ships of the Eldar came in from Tol Eressëa.

The Ban of the Valar

One condition was laid on the gift. The Númenóreans might sail wherever they wished in the eastern seas, but they were forbidden to sail west out of sight of their own shores or to set foot on the Undying Lands, lest they should come to desire what they could not have. In the early centuries they kept the Ban gladly. The Eldar of Eressëa visited them often, bringing gifts, among them a seedling of the White Tree of Tirion, which was planted in the king's court at Armenelos and named Nimloth. The Númenóreans learned Sindarin and Quenya, mastered shipcraft, and under the mariner-king Tar-Aldarion began to sail to Middle-earth, where they founded havens and taught the lesser Men. In time their fleets became the greatest power in the world, and Tar-Minastir's navy broke Sauron's armies in the war of the Elves and Sauron.

The line of kings

The sceptre passed from Elros through some twenty-five rulers, kings and, after the law of Tar-Aldarion, ruling queens, of whom Tar-Ancalimë was the first. The early rulers laid down their lives willingly when they felt age approaching, in the manner of the Edain, and each lived long and ruled well. But the greatness of Númenor bred discontent. Its people looked at the western horizon and asked why they, who had all else, should be denied the deathlessness of the Elves, and their voyages to Middle-earth turned from teaching to tribute and lordship.

The shadow

The change was open by the reign of Tar-Atanamir, the thirteenth king, who spoke against the Ban and clung to life until he died in dotage rather than surrender it. Messengers of the Valar came to reason with him and were refused. After him the people divided. The King's Men, the greater part, turned from the Eldar and the Valar; the Faithful, called the Elendili, kept the old friendship and were led by the Lords of Andúnië, who descended from the royal house through Silmariën. The Elves' ships ceased to come. Later kings took their royal names in the Adûnaic tongue, beginning with Ar-Adûnakhôr; Ar-Gimilzôr forbade the Elvish languages and forced the Faithful out of the west of the island to Rómenna. His son Tar-Palantir repented, tended the White Tree again and climbed the Meneltarma to look for the lost coast of the West, but he had no son, and his nephew Pharazôn seized the throne by marrying Tar-Palantir's daughter Tar-Míriel against her will.

Sauron in Númenor

Ar-Pharazôn, the proudest and most powerful of all the kings, sailed to Middle-earth with so great an armament that Sauron's servants deserted him, and Sauron came down from his tower and gave himself up. Brought to Númenor as a hostage, he became within a few years the king's closest counsellor. He taught that Melkor was the true lord of the world and giver of freedom, persuaded the king to have Nimloth cut down, and had a great domed temple built in Armenelos where men were burned in sacrifice to the Dark. Isildur, grandson of Amandil the last Lord of Andúnië, stole a fruit of the Tree before it fell. The Faithful were persecuted, and Amandil sailed west in secret to plead with the Valar as Eärendil had, and was never seen again; his son Elendil gathered the Faithful and their ships at Rómenna to wait.

The Downfall

In the year 3319 Ar-Pharazôn, old and afraid of death, launched the Great Armament and sailed west to take immortality from the Valar by force. He landed on the shores of Aman, and the Valar laid down their guardianship of the world and called on Eru. The world was changed: Aman was taken away beyond the reach of ships, the seas were bent, and Númenor fell into a chasm and was covered by the waves, its people, its cities and its temple together. Tar-Míriel died striving to climb the Meneltarma, and the king and his host were buried under falling hills. Only the Faithful survived. Elendil's nine ships, driven east on the storm, came to Middle-earth, and there he and his sons Isildur and Anárion founded Arnor and Gondor, planting the seedling of Nimloth in the new city of Minas Ithil. Sauron's body perished in the Downfall, but his spirit fled back to Mordor. The Númenóreans afterward called their lost land Atalantë, the Downfallen, and its exiles believed that the peak of the Meneltarma still rose above the sea, though no mariner who sought it ever found it.

Númenor lay in the Great Sea west of Middle-earth and east of Tol Eressëa, some six hundred miles across from the tip of one arm of the star to another. Its coast was mostly high and rocky, with the sheltered bays of Andúnië and Eldanna in the west and the Bay of Rómenna in the east; the north and south shores of the promontories were cliff-bound. The Meneltarma stood in the centre, and from its foot the river Siril ran south through the Mittalmar to the fishing villages of the south coast, while the Nunduinë ran west to Eldalondë. Sheep and horses were reared on the downs of the Emerië, vines grew in the Hyarnustar, timber in the Hyarrostar and grain in the Orrostar, and the Forostar was a land of quarries and heath where the eagles nested on Sorontil. After the Downfall nothing remained above the water save, in the belief of the exiles, the summit of the Meneltarma.