Forums:Invention of the Cirth

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The timeline on this website assumes that the Cirth were invented in 1300 and that Daeron improved them in 1350. I believed this scenario for quite a while now, and I believe most articles follow it as well, for instance the one on the Certhas Daeron, but I would be interested in seeing the original source. I assumed it would be said in the Grey Annals, but I could find no statement there to back the scenario up; quite the opposite in fact: in the Grey Annals, there is no mention of the Cirth being ever renewed during the Old Sindarin period and instead it is portrayed as if they were invented some time between 1350 and 1495.

So, do any of you know a source stating when the Cirth were invented and when they were updated? Unsigned comment by Faenor (talk • contribs).

Check Annals of Aman, note on §85. Also Grey Annals, note on §31. If the Runes were invented in Y.T. 1300 and the Dwarves adopted them Y.T. 1350, it is quite pertinent to deduce they were already improved. It is true that the sources do not explicitly give the date of update, but the idea is having a coherence in the Timeline. --LorenzoCB 19:35, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
in the notes §85 and §86 of the Annals of Aman I find no mention of the Cirth, but only of the wedding of Earwen and the arrival of the Nandor. And note §31 of the Grey Annals deals with the time after the Nandors' arrival (in 1350) and says that in that time the Cirth were invented. Am I having an outdated form of the script? I've read WJ13/14 and Morgoth's Ring page 91. Faenor 14:53, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
The notes are not the same as the paragraphs, but the commentary made by Christopher. MR p.106 and WJ p.110. --LorenzoCB 15:51, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Thanks a lot! One more thing though: WJ/110 says the runes were invented at an unspecified time before 1300, whereas MR/106 says it was exactly in 1300. Do we know which note Tolkien wrote last? I thought the Grey Annals and the Annals of Aman were written at about the same time and should thus not be likely to contradict one another... Faenor 14:41, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
The Grey Annals were written a little after the Annals of Aman, although Tolkien never finished developing his works: that info from the GA seems to be a development of the note in the AAm. But we are missing an important point: Dairon contrives the Runes "ere the building of Menegroth" in Y.T. 1300 (WJ, p.14, footnote. Same as in MR p.106). In the peace that came later, Dairon devised them in Y.T. 1350. So if we are talking about the invention of the Runes, it was clarily between 1300-1350. --LorenzoCB 16:11, 11 August 2020 (UTC)