Abstract
Encounters with ruins are found throughout J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth tales. These ruins—or what Deborah Sabo (2007) terms ‘archaeological sites’—serve as symbols of the passage of time and the loss of past glory. Significantly, these archaeological sites are almost exclusively oriented toward the male heroic world; from ancient battlefields to statues commemorating fallen kings, burial mounds of legendary warriors, and the remnants of once-great halls built and ruled by men. Apart from Tol Morwen, mentioned only briefly in The Silmarillion, few sites across Middle-earth offer readers material clues about women’s history. These archaeological sites thus reproduce a gendered hierarchy of memory found within the archaeological and historical record of the Primary World, rendering women’s lives, labour, and losses invisible. Through close reading of select passages from Tolkien’s texts, this paper investigates how women’s lives are remembered or erased within the archaeological landscape of Middle-earth, with particular reference to dwarf-women, whose invisibility in the narrative and confinement to the domestic sphere, combined with the fact that most Dwarf settlements encountered firsthand in the narratives are ruins, provides an ideal context to explore questions of erasure and memory.
Recommended Citation
Hall, Catherine
(2026)
"Invisible Histories: Dwarf-women and the Material Landscape of Tolkien’s Middle-earth,"
Journal of Tolkien Research: Vol. 24:
Iss.
2, Article 2.
Available at:
https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol24/iss2/2
Comments
This paper was presented at Fantasy's Present Pasts, the inaugural European conference on the fantastic, at the University of Glasgow on June 25th, 2026.