Fourth Age

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This article also concerns the later Ages of Middle-earth, after the Fourth Age

The Fourth Age and the later ages that followed it, are fictional time periods from J. R. R. Tolkien's universe of Middle-earth. Most of his fiction about Middle-earth concerned earlier ages, and there is relatively little material on these later ages that followed the Third Age.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The Fourth Age followed the defeat of Sauron and the destruction of his Ruling Ring, but did not officially begin until after the Bearers of the Three Rings left Middle-earth for the Uttermost West.<ref>Template:ME-ref}}</ref>

The Fourth Age was (presumably) marked by the recovery of the Númenórean kingdoms in exile (Arnor and Gondor), the final ascent of Men and the total wane of the Elves.

Tolkien's writing does not provide information on more than the first few centuries of this age, so it is not known when it ended.

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Later Ages

Tolkien said that he thought the time between the end of the Third Age and the 20th century A.D. was about 6000 years, and that in 1958 A.D. it should have been around the end of the Fifth Age if the Fourth and Fifth Ages were about the same length as the Second and Third Ages. He said, however, in a letter written in 1958 that he believed the Ages had quickened and that it was about the end of the Sixth Age/beginning of the Seventh.<ref>Template:ME-ref</ref> It must be kept in mind that Tolkien typically refuted that Middle Earth was in any way a real world and that he tended to deny it was even fictionally an alternate early history. How Tolkien in later years spoke of his fiction might be considered of questionable use in canonical interpetation of his fiction.

Determining the epoch of a Fifth Age is important for those who apply the Tolkien calendar to present dates. For example, issue 42 of Mallorn, the journal of the Tolkien Society (August 2004), carried a lengthy article analyzing all the available data and concluding that the First Age began on March 25, 10,160 BC, the Second Age on December 26, 9564 BC, the Third Age on December 24, 6123 BC, and the Fourth Age on March 18, 3102 BC.