Amazon Studios' Lord of the Rings fantasy drama series has just released an interactive map on Amazon, through it confirming that the as-yet-untitled show will be set during the Second Age that includes the island and era of Númenor - making it a "prequel" series of sorts, giving context and leading up to the events depicted in the Lord of the Rings film series.
In February, Amazon Studios gave its first tantalising tease of where and more importantly when its sprawling fantasy series for Amazon Prime Video will be set, when it published a Lord of the Rings map of Middle-earth, strongly indicating that the saga would take place and revolve around characters who lived and interacted during the Second or Third Age.
The map now contains Númenor - a mythical place that later sank, similar to a fabled Atlantis, meaning that the series, the most expensive TV production in history and the likely heir to HBO's Game of Thrones, will be set during the Second Age of J.R.R. Tolkien's expansive fantasy world that basically spans four main ages.
The events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place during the Third Age, meaning that the first season of Amazon's TV series that's speculated to arrive from late-2021, will be a prequel and build-up to those events and characters.
The Second Age lasted for about 3 500 years, and as always Wikipedia helps out describing Númenor in the past tense as "a fabulous lost civilization".
It was a large located in the Sundering Seas to the west of Middle-earth, and was known to be the greatest civilization of Men as the Númenóreans rose to become a powerful people.
The Númenóreans helped in Middle-earth's War of the Elves and Sauron that started after the forging of the Rings of Power and the One Ring, and together with the Elves were able to temporarily defeat Sauron in Mordor.
Of course power corrupts and the powerful Númenor becomes jealously of the Elves over their immortality and wants the same.
Long story short, Sauron is captured and brought to Númenor, he seduced them, Númenor decided to rise up against the Elves and in a cataclysmic event the island was sunk back beneath the ocean as it was originally raised as a gift to Man for helping the Elves during the wars of the First Age.
Sauron survived the sinking of Númenor but his body perished and as a "spirit of hatred" he fled back to Mordor.
Someone like Aragorn is a direct descendant from the former kings of Númenor.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them, In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. #LOTRonPrime pic.twitter.com/7TuQh7gRPD— The Lord of the Rings on Prime (@LOTRonPrime) March 7, 2019
