"...at last they came to the
Silent Street,
Rath Dínen, between pale domes and empty halls and images of men long dead..."
From The Return of the King V 4
The Siege of Gondor
The final resting-places of the Kings and Stewards of Gondor, on a narrow shelf of land beneath Mount Mindolluin. The Tombs were reached by a road that ran down from the Citadel of Minas Tirith, and were carefully protected; except during an actual entombing, they were visited only by those specially appointed to preserve them. The way to the Tombs was guarded by the Closed Door, Fen Hollen.
It seems that some of the Kings of Gondor had their own Tombs, while others were entombed within the House of the Kings on the Silent Street of Rath Dínen that ran through the Houses of the Dead. At the time of the War of the Ring, then, there would have been at least twenty-nine Tombs of the Kings.1 The Stewards were also laid to rest on the Silent Street, but for them it seems there was only a single great mausoleum: the House of the Stewards in which Denethor took his own life during the Siege of Minas Tirith.
Notes
1 |
There were thirty-one independent Kings of Gondor from Meneldil to the end of his line. However, at least two of these would not have been buried on the Silent Street: Castamir the Usurper (who would surely have been denied the honour) and Eärnur (whose body was never recovered from Minas Morgul).
Anárion, the founder of the line of Kings, may also have had a tomb on the Silent Street, but there are reasons to think he may not. First, he was not an independent King of the realm, but the co-ruler with his brother Isildur under the High King Elendil. Second, he was slain in Mordor in a Siege that continued for a year after his death, so an appropriate funeral may not have been practical. |
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- Updated 5 December 2011
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