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Middle-Earth Tours
Tour 2: The Places of Middle-Earth
The Black Gate
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Cirith Gorgor, by Paul Monteagle
image courtesy of The Framecap Library |
This was Cirith Gorgor, the Haunted Pass, the entrance to the land of the Enemy. High cliffs lowered upon either side, and thrust forward from its mouth were two sheer hills, black-boned and bare. Upon them stood the Teeth of Mordor, two towers strong and tall....
Across the mouth of the pass, from cliff to cliff, the Dark Lord had built a rampart of stone. In it there was a single gate of iron, and upon its battlement sentinels paced unceasingly. Beneath the hills on either side the rock was bored into a hundred caves and maggot-holes; there a host of orcs lurked, ready at a signal to issue forth like black ants going to war. --TTT, "The Black Gate Is Closed" |
 The Black Gate, by Alan Lee |
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Gollum's Debate, by Ted Nasmith |
The Black Gate is Closed, by Michael Kaluta |
Here nothing lived, not even the leprous growths that feed on rottenness. The gasping pools were choked with ash and crawling muds, sickly white and grey, as if the mountains had vomited the filfth of their entrails upon the lands about. High mounds of crushed and powered rock, great cones of earht fire-blasted and poison-stained, stood like an obscene graveyard in endless rows, slowly revealed in the reluctant light. --TTT, "The Passage of the Marshes" |
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At its head there rode a tall and evil shape, mounted upon a black horse, if horse it was; for it was huge and hideous, and its face was a frightful mask, more like a skull than a living head, and in the sockets of its eyes and in its nostrils there burned a flame. The rider was robed all in black, and black was his lofty helm; yet this was no Ringwraith but a living man. The Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-Dûr he was, and his name is remembered in no tale; for he himself had forgotten it, and he said: 'I am the Mouth of Sauron.' --trotK, "The Black Gate Opens" |
The Mouth of Sauron, by Luca Michelucci |
The Lieutenant of the Black Tower of Barad-Dûr, by John Howe
from The Framecap Library
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Two key battles took place at the Black Gate: the Last Alliance, which closed out the Second Age; and the Battle of the Captains of the West, which closed out the third age. The first three pictures below represent the Last Alliance, which will be seen in flashback during the LotR movies. The final picture seems to show Aragorn and Eomer preparing for their final battle against Sauron.
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Elrond with the Last Alliance, spy photo from Imladris.net |
image gleaned from a Flash sequence on the official movie site by a theonering.net spy |
Isildur at the Last Alliance, image from the official movie site |
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image from a RotK trailer |
Drums rolled and fires leaped up. The great doors of the Black Gate swung back wide. Out of it streamed a great host as swiftly as swirling waters when a sluice is lifted.
The Captains mounted again and rode back, and from the host of Mordor there went up a jeering yell. Dust rose smothering the air, as from nearby there marched an army of Easterlings....Down from the hills on either side of the Moran |
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Little time was left to Aragorn for the ordering of his battle. Upon the one hill he stood with Gandalf, and there fair and desperate was raised the banner of the Tree and Stars. Upon the other hill hard by stood the banners of Rohan and Dol Amroth, White Horse and Silver Swan. And about each hill a ring was made facing all ways, bristling with spear and sword. --RotK, "The Black Gate Opens" |
a widely reproduced picture,
credited to Pierre Vinet |
Full-size versions of these pictures are on display at Rolozo Tolkien, the official LotR movie site, and theonering.net.
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