TheOneRing.net reports, Oct. 23, 2015, that illustrator Pauline Baynes recently discovered a map of Middle-earth drawn and annotated by J.R.R. Tolkien himself.
↓Click maps to enlarge↓
The Guardian reports that Baynes found the map loose in a copy of The Lord of the Rings. The map has “copious” notes made by Tolkien in green ink and pencil, as well as Baynes’ own notes.
Blackwell’s, which is currently exhibiting the map in Oxford and selling it for £60,000, called it “an important document, and perhaps the finest piece of Tolkien ephemera to emerge in the last 20 years at least”.
According to Blackwell’s, the map displays “the exacting nature” of Tolkien and his creative process. He fixes names, gives additional names and reveals details such as Hobbiton “is assumed to be approx at latitude of Oxford,” where Tolkien was a professor.
Blackwell’s also claims that Tolkien wrote “the city of Ravenna is the inspiration behind Minas Tirith – a key location in the third book of the Lord of The Rings trilogy.”
Minas Tirith is the city-capital of Gondor.
The city of Ravenna is located in northern Italy on the Adriatic coast between Milan and Rome.
Here’s a pic of Ravenna. It certainly resembles Minas Tirith!
~Éowyn