A pair of steep stairs that cut into the Mountains of Shadow on the borders of Mordor. They led upward and away from Minas Morgul, the city that guarded the main pass through the mountains, to reach a higher and lesser pass guarded by the Tower of Cirith Ungol. The first of the stairs was the steepest, the Straight Stair, which led up to a narrow passage. From there, the second stair, the Winding Stair, led up to Cirith Ungol itself.
We're never told who made the stairs. They may have been originally carved by Sauron's servants, or perhaps been made later, by the Gondorians at the same time as they raised the Tower to guard the pass. Whatever their origin, they were no secret to the Orcs that inhabited the Tower in the later Third Age, though Frodo and Sam were still able to use them to find a dangerous way into the Dark Land.
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We're not told who made the Stairs of Cirith Ungol or when they came into existence, but given that they led up to the Tower of Cirith Ungol that guarded the high pass, it seems reasonable to assume that they would have been made at the same time as the Tower. The Tower of Cirith Ungol was raised by Men after the War of the Last Alliance as part of the guard of Mordor, so the Stairs leading up to the pass might well have been associated with the Tower. Alternatively, the Stairs might have been made in an earlier time, with the pass being used during the Second Age, and the Tower of Cirith Ungol being built later to guard an existing way over the mountains. (If the Stairs predated the Tower that guarded the pass, then they would presumably have been made by Orcs, which - together with their great age - would explain their broken and uneven state at the end of the Third Age.)
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- Updated 15 February 2023
- Updates planned: 1
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