The dungeons and torture chambers of Sauron beneath his Dark Tower of Barad-dûr. In the text of the The Lord of the Rings the term is used without explanation by the Orc Shagrat (as for example in, 'The Black Pits take that filthy rebel Gorbag!'),2 but in his expanded index to the book Tolkien explains that Shagrat was referring to the real torture pits of Sauron.
Notes
1 |
References to the Black Pits are all related to the second Dark Tower, raised at the end of the Third Age. Presumably the earlier version of the Tower also had its torture chambers, but whether these were also known as the Black Pits is unknown.
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2 |
The Return of the King VI 1, The Tower of Cirith Ungol
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- Updated 8 June 2017
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