Noirinan

The Valley of the Tombs

The Noirinan was a deep cleft in the southern side of the Meneltarma, where the smooth green slopes of the mountain broke and fell away into a valley walled with rock. Its name meant the Valley of the Tombs, for doors were cut in its steep sides, and behind them lay the burial chambers of the Kings and Queens of Númenor.

From a spring at the valley's head rose the Siril, the chief river of the island, which ran south through the Mittalmar to the fens and the fishing village of Nindamos on the southern shore. The road from Armenelos came west to the Noirinan, and it was there that the winding way began which climbed the Meneltarma to its summit, so that the ascent to the Hallow of Eru started among the graves of the kings. No one dwelt in the valley, and it was kept quiet; the Númenóreans came to it in procession or on their way up the mountain, and for no other purpose.

The kings in the rock

Elros Tar-Minyatur, who laid down his life after ruling four hundred and ten years, was the first brought to the Noirinan, and every ruler of his line after him was carried there. In the early ages the kings surrendered their lives willingly while their strength and their wits were whole, and the journey from Armenelos down into the valley was the closing act of a reign rather than a defeat.

The tombs afterward measured the change that came over the realm. Tar-Atanamir, the thirteenth king, refused to give up his life and died in dotage clinging to it, and the rulers who followed him were carried to the valley unwilling. At the last the honour of the place failed altogether: Ar-Pharazôn sought no tomb but sailed west to wrest deathlessness from the Valar, and neither he nor Tar-Míriel came to the Noirinan at all, for she died on the slopes of the Meneltarma itself as the sea rose over the land. The valley and its doors went down with the island in S.A. 3319. Its name and its use are recorded only in the Description of the Island of Númenor in Unfinished Tales.

The Noirinan opened in the southern flank of the Meneltarma, where the mountain's gentle grass slopes gave way to rock. Its walls were steep enough to be cut for chambers, and its floor carried the head-waters of the Siril away southward across the Inlands. The ceremonial road from the Kingsland ended at the valley, and the spiralling path to the summit of the mountain began from it.