Why we need the Timelines Project

by Tyler Hilgendorf  •  22 September 2026

The very first word of The Lord of the Rings is a clue about the timeline of the narrative: “When…” It signals that there is an event which is being discussed: Bilbo’s announcement of his party: “When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced…”

Even as just a twelve-year-old on my first reading, when I finished The Lord of the Rings and encountered the Appendices in the back, I was struck by Tolkien’s incredible attention to detail, especially when it came to the calendars and dates. This aspect of the story became a subject of fascination for me, and I began to annotate my copies of the books with the exact Shire-Reckoning dates for every part of the story and started doing chronological “real-time” read-throughs where each days’ reading corresponded to that day in the narrative. This started requiring more and more research and close reading of the text, because Appendix B does not have an entry for every event mentioned in the text. I began to become more interested in these unlisted events, and to find that the closer I read, the more depth of detail I noticed, and the more interesting questions I found myself asking and then answering as I dug yet deeper into the text.

An Example Event

Bilbo’s Announcement is one of these events which we are told clearly that it happened, but it is not listed in Appendix B, which led me to ask “When does the book actually start?” We all know Bilbo’s birthday is September 22nd. We all know the destruction of the Ring occurred on March 25th. It is interesting, then, that this is decidedly not the case for the very first event ever mentioned in the book. But a close reading reveals many clues that Tolkien gave us that can help us narrow it down quite a lot. I do not know whether this was an intentional little mystery that Tolkien put in right at the beginning of his story, but I like to think so.

After a little bit of backstory on Bilbo and Frodo, the narrative returns to “present day” and zooms in on Ham Gamgee at the Ivy Bush, responding to the news of the announcement and saying the party is “this very month” (LR 1.01.024). And the narrator tells us “That very month was September” (LR 1.01.025) so it must be September 1 or later when the book begins.

“A day or two later a rumour… was spread about that there were going to be fireworks” (LR 1.01.025). So at a minimum, a total of 1 day has passed. Then “Days passed and The Day drew nearer” (LR 1.01.026), and some dwarves arrive at Bag End. That’s plural “days” so at least 2 more, and at a minimum, a total of 3 days have now passed. It is heavily implied that it is on a separate, later day that Gandalf arrives: “A few of them [the Dwarves] remained at Bag End. At the end of the second week in September a cart came… An old man was driving it all alone” (LR 1.01.026). At minimum, a total of 4 days have passed.

But we cannot limit ourselves to Chapter 1. We also know from Appendix D that for Hobbits “the last day of the week [was] Friday”. And Appendix D also shows that Halimath/September begins on a Thursday so the 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th are Fridays. It must be on one of these that Gandalf arrives. Later in the same day, Bilbo says “I mean to enjoy myself on Thursday” (LR 1.01.036), so the party must be the very next Thursday. We know Bilbo’s birthday is on the 22nd from LR 1.01.044 (“Then Thursday, September the 22nd, actually dawned. The sun got up, the clouds vanished, flags were unfurled and the fun began”). So Gandalf must have arrived on the 16th.

Working backwards, the dwarves must have arrived with the cart on the 15th or earlier. That was after “days passed” (plural) so the rumour of fireworks must be the 13th or earlier. So the announcement of the party must be on the 12th or earlier! To summarize:

So it is only with the use of fully ten separate pieces of evidence, pulled from six different paragraphs of Chapter 1, and two other locations in Appendix D, that we can actually figure out the range of possible dates for the very first sentence of the book. But it is exciting that this seems like a truly new piece of information (I have not been able to find any other source that narrows down the date for the beginning of the book so explicitly). And I think all of Tolkien’s works must be filled with many other such examples of new data just waiting to be found by systematic study and documentation.

The Timelines Project

So, I began to envision a resource which includes an entry for every event mentioned in any Tolkien story, whether a date is given or not, and whether it is as well-known as Bilbo’s Party or as obscure as the collapse of the roof of the Town Hole of Michel Delving (which, as far as I can tell, is only mentioned in LR 1.09.049, as Pippin is described telling the story in the Prancing Pony). Around this time I discovered that the Digital Tolkien Project was also expressing interest in starting a Timelines project, and was delighted that my obscure nerdy interest might have a pathway to becoming a tangible resource for the Tolkien community, and signed up to help. I envision that this resource will compile a cross-reference of every mention of each particular event, and will use all available information to constrain the dates and times for each event as tightly as the textual evidence allows, with rigorous quotations, references, and reasoning explained. Redundant information will be included, as it may be interesting to see exactly how often and by what texts certain events are documented, and contradictory information will also be documented, as that can also be an interesting subject of study. And this resource will be tied very closely to the sentence and paragraph level so that it can be integrated into all the other amazing character, dialogue, location, and other types of annotation work going on at the Digital Tolkien Project.

Previous Works

The first question to answer was “does this already exist anywhere?” Such a project would clearly require an enormous level of effort, and if it already exists it would not make much sense to duplicate it. An online search for “Tolkien legendarium timeline” yielded several top results. First off, there are several resources which just aren’t really attempting to be the type of resource we are talking about. These would be things like the History of Arda Wikipedia page and various infographics which can be found posted on various forums, which are more overviews or do not attempt to document at any level more granular than the year in which events occurred.

Then there are the more rigorous attempts at making an exhaustive timeline which I have documented below, with the shortcomings of each, as I see them. They are the Tolkien Gateway Timeline, the LOTR Fandom Timeline of Arda, the LOTR Project Timeline, and the Encyclopedia of Arda Chronicle. Note that my assessments below are not very thorough or rigorous. To figure out how to take the very different formatting of each website and put it into a standard form for comparison is, to be honest, not something I was willing to spend the time to do at this moment. So I’ve only done a quick scan of each’s treatment of certain parts of the Third Age (which is the part of the timeline I’ve done most thoroughly myself at this point) for any differences. I’ve also looked at a few key events which are particularly obscure or tricky as indicators to see if each site included them, and if so, how it handled them. Also note that this is not meant to be a passing of judgement or a critique on these websites! It is only meant to be an assessment of each on the very specific criteria I am looking for in the very specific type of timeline resource that I want to exist.

Issues

In looking at these resources, none of them completely fulfilled the type of documentation I was looking for. I eventually categorized my complaints into four main issues I was noticing, with some resources having more issues than others. The issues are:

1. Known Events Excluded. Some resources are little more than copies of the timelines given in the text; there are so many other precisely-known events which we know from the narratives and appendices which are not included. Examples of this are the deaths of the kings in Appendix A, the births and deaths in the various family trees of Appendix C, and more commonly because they are rare and harder to spot, the various explicit references to years, months, seasons, etc. in the narrative portions of the Prologue, Appendices, and other works.

2. Uncertain Events Excluded. There are also many imprecisely-known events, both in the main narrative and the appendices for which dates are not explicitly given but which we still know happened. Often there is no attempt to include these in online resources, even though we can very often narrow down the dates during which they occurred from clues in the text. Bilbo’s announcement of his party is a perfect example of this type of event.

3. Incomplete Citation and Reasoning. Some resources do attempt to include the types of events like Bilbo’s announcement, but they do not fully or rigorously document their textual sources or reasoning for their terminus post quem and terminus ante quem. An example of this is a source that might give the possible dates of Bilbo’s announcement, but not give any reasoning for why the announcement must be in early September. This issue is particularly important to me. Even if a timeline is perfectly accurate, it is hard to trust its dates for an obscure event on the timeline when there are no textual quotations and no references to the text so that a user could at least go and verify it for themselves.

4. Incomplete Cross-Referencing. Often if a resource does cite its textual sources for determining the date of an event, it tends to cite the bare minimum needed. I think it could be very valuable to have a resource which attempts to exhaustively list all mentions of an event found in all Tolkien’s works. Fans and researchers seeking to know more about a particular event could use such a resource as a starting point to find all descriptions of an event. A good example of this issue is with the event “...a shadow falls on Greenwood, and men begin to call it Mirkwood.” This event is from in LR B.TA.1050, but it is also referenced in the Prologue: “Their [Hobbits’] own accounts speak of... a shadow that fell on the forest, so that it became darkened and its new name was Mirkwood” [LR pr.01.007] and also possibly by Gandalf in LR 1.02.091: “his [Sauron’s] shadow took shape again in Mirkwood”.

Tolkien Gateway

The Tolkien Gateway Timeline most closely approaches my vision of what the Timelines project should be. It largely fulfills issue #1 above: it includes many events not found in any Appendix to The Lord of the Rings and even goes to The Peoples of Middle-earth to find information. It does attempt to fulfill issue #2; for example it contains an event for the gossip in the Ivy Bush about Bilbo’s announcement, which is nearly equivalent to having an event for Bilbo’s announcement. For issue #3, it is mostly okay; nearly every entry has some kind of citation. However, it is not very consistent: for some events it provides an exact page number and/or even a direct quote which is extremely useful (for example, Gandalf’s arrival before Bilbo’s party), while for other events it lists merely the book and chapter, so a reader might have to scan a whole chapter to find the textual evidence. I noticed at least one event which did not contain any citation or reasoning at all, the entry saying the reign of Frumgar began in TA 1975 (As far as I am aware, there is no date given anywhere for the beginning of the reign of Frumgar, except that it must be before TA 1977 when it is said “Frumgar leads the Éothéod into the North” [LR B.TA.1977]. For issue #4, it does not attempt to exhaustively cross-reference each event, only providing one or two sources for each. For example, for the shadow falling on Greenwood, it lists only the Appendix B reference and excludes the Prologue and Chapter 2 references.

LOTR Fandom

The LOTR Fandom Timeline of Arda violates issue #1: it appears to be mostly just a copy of Appendix B and is missing many details given explicitly in Appendix A (the deaths of Kings of Gondor Meneldil and Cemendur in TA 158 and 238, for example). It does contain some attempts to fulfill issue #2 with its entry for “King Turambar of Gondor defeats the Easterlings of Rhûn; the Northmen of Rhovanion become allies of Gondor”, which does not appear in the list of dates in Appendix B. However, while it provides textual references for this event, it does not provide any reasoning for its choice of “c. 550” as the date for this event. I would argue that the only constraint that can be placed on this event is that it must occur during the reign of King Turambar: “Turambar his son avenged him, and won much territory eastwards” [LR A.1.iv.02], and therefore can only be constrained to between TA 541 and 667 (the death dates of Rómendacil and Turambar and therefore the start and end of Turambar’s reign from LR A.1.ii.04). The date given of “c. 550” implies a level of precision that cannot be justified textually, so that hurts its assessment on issue #3. Additionally, it appears that providing any sources whatsoever for its information seems to be the exception, not the rule. This also means it does not do well on issue #3 and #4. Finally, I find this resource to be just a bit less precise and perhaps more editorialized than I am looking for: In TA 933 it says “Eärnil I of Gondor takes Umbar in a surprise attack.” I can see no justification in the text for the editorial addition of it being “a surprise attack” although it is not unlikely to be true. In TA 1000 it says “The Wizards come to Middle-earth” while in the text it actually says “When maybe a thousand years had passed [since the Third Age began]... the Istari or Wizards appeared” [LR B.TA.02, emphasis mine], so giving a date of 1000 also implies an unjustified level of precision.

LOTR Project

The LOTR Project Timeline does very poorly on issue #1, excluding a large number of events just from Appendix B, although it does include some very specific and obscure month- and day-level information for the Disaster of the Morannon in TA 1944 and the Battle of the Field of Celebrant in TA 2510 from Unfinished Tales. So it is also strangely inconsistent in what it chooses to include. Apart from these examples, it does not appear to include any Third Age events found outside of Appendix B or which are not explicitly given dates in the main narrative, so also does poorly on issue #2. It does not contain any citations of any kind so does poorly on issues #3 and #4. However, its presentation of displaying events tied to the location in which they take place is unique and exactly the kind of thing that will hopefully be done with the Timelines project at the Digital Tolkien Project.

Encyclopedia of Arda

The Encyclopedia of Arda Chronicle appears very good on issue #1, including every entry of Appendix B but also many entries from other Appendices and many that appear to be from Unfinished Tales and, like Tolkien Gateway, Peoples of Middle-earth. This is probably the most complete listing I have found online of events that are explicitly given dates in the text. However, it does not appear to have any interest in other events which are not given explicit dates, so does poorly on issue #2. And unfortunately it also does not contain any citations of any kind, other than a general list of books used as sources for the entire website, so does poorly on issues #3 and #4.

A summary of my assessments is given in the table below:

Conclusion

So, as far as I could tell there is no resource already in existence that fulfills all the criteria I would like to see in a timeline of the Legendarium. There are some good attempts at complete lists of events, but no source I have found adequately provides citations to the text and none attempt to create a full cross-reference resource. I think the potential increase in usefulness beyond those that already exists justifies the effort that will be required to produce it.

Further uses

By compiling such a detailed resource as we are envisioning at the Digital Tolkien Project, many other possibilities for its use will open up. We have already thought of some, but others will surely occur to us as we realize the full potential of the project.

We are quite sure there will be a tagging system so users can filter by common things such as births, deaths, battles, character names, reigns of rulers, and country/region names. Events will also be able to be filtered by textual source, as it could be very interesting to see what First Age events are exclusively mentioned by, say The Lord of the Rings alone. It could also be interesting to see with what precision the dates of events of The Lord of the Rings are still known if you filter out all the absolute dates from Appendix B (i.e. how necessary is Appendix B for locking down the timeline of events?)

We plan on having a comparison tool that lets users quickly see the length of time between any two events, and a way to choose one event and look at the entire Timeline in the context of that event. So users could choose, say, Sam’s birth date, and easily see his age during all other events. For example, Bilbo was already 90 years old when Sam was born. His father the Gaffer was 54. (Perhaps this is why they call him the Gaffer!) Bilbo returned from his adventure 38 years before his birth. Sauron declared himself 29 years before and Mount Doom erupted 26 years earlier so perhaps Sam grew up in a slightly more worried and uncertain Shire than he otherwise might have. Frodo is 12 years older, and becomes orphaned the year of Sam’s birth. Sam is 3 years older than Faramir so when he is described as “this grave young man” [LR 4.05.076] this is very much his and Frodo’s perception. Sam is 9 when 21-year-old Frodo comes to live at Bag End, and is 10 when Pippin is born. He is 21 when Bilbo has his Party and 38 when he joins Frodo on the Quest. This one example hopefully illustrates the amazing amount of interesting context that can be gleaned from such a tool.

By integrating Timelines with Character and Location annotations it could be possible to show on a map exactly where every character is on what dates. This has of course been done before by many people, but not at the level of detail and with the amount of textual evidence we are envisioning. Travel times between locations could be an artifact of this integration, and there could perhaps be maps showing the change over time of borders of different realms and empires.