Seventh Level

Within the Mountains of Moria, the old Dwarf-city of Khazad-dûm was divided into Levels that ascended within the mountains, and Deeps that descended below ground level. The Level directly behind that East-gate of Moria was the First Level, the one above that the Second Level, and so on. At least some of these Levels contained wide halls, with many lesser chambers and stairways leading off from them.

The Seventh Level was the sixth above the East-gate. It was on this Level that Balin and his people set up the heart of their new colony within Moria, and specifically in a Hall identified as the Twenty-first Hall of the North-end. Long after Balin's expedition came to a disastrous end, the same Hall was visited by the Company of the Ring as they passed through Moria. They found Balin's tomb in the Chamber of Mazarbul, a chamber connected to the northern side of the Twenty-first Hall.

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The arrangement of the Levels and their Halls within Moria is not explained in detail, and our only other clues are not profoundly helpful: we know that the First Hall was on the First Level, directly behind the East-gate, and that the Second Hall was down a flight of steps in the First Deep. Nonetheless, the fact that the Twenty-first Hall was found on the Seventh Level implies that there were relatively few Halls on each of Moria's Levels.

Given that 21 is a multiple of 7, we might assume that there were three Halls on each Level. However, the internal arrangement of Moria does not seem to have been quite so orderly as this might suggest (given that the Second Hall was in the First Deep, not on the First or Second Levels as we might expect). What's more, the fact that the Twenty-first Hall was of the North-end (that is, northward of the East-gate) also raises a complication. This phrasing implies that there might have been an equivalent Twenty-first Hall of the South-end, thus potentially doubling the number of Halls on each Level of Moria.