Gate of Steel
Seven Gates of Gondolin | |
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Other names | the Great Gate |
Location | Orfalch Echor |
Appearance | A mighty fence of steel with seven wide beams, flanked by towers |
The Gate of Steel was the last of the Seven Gates of Gondolin, built some centuries after the other six as an ultimate defence after the disaster of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. The gate was like a great steel fence across the Orfalch Echor. The fence had seven great needle-like pillars of steel and between these pillars there were seven cross-bars of steel and forty-nine vertical rods with heads like broad blades of spears. In the centre, above the midmost pillar, was raised a mighty image if the king-helm of Turgon, the Crown of the Hidden Kingdom, set about with diamonds. The gate opened inward on either side of the pillar of the Crown. Though all but impassable to an enemy, the Gate ultimately failed to prevent the Fall of Gondolin. This gate followed the Gate of Gold.[1]