Great Armament

The Great Armament refers to the vast military build-up conducted between the years SA 3310 and SA 3319 by Ar-Pharazôn and his loyal soldiers, to assail the Valar and claim immortality from them.

History

For a period of nine years, many loyal shipwrights and armorers toiled in workshops and drydocks building ships and forging weapons of war. Much of the work seems to have been performed in the western part of Númenor in or near the harbors, since that is where the ships would launch from. The armament was possibly the greatest armament in the history of Arda at the time until perhaps the days of the Last Alliance over one-hundred years later. It included a vast armada of sturdy warships and no doubt thousands of heavily armed soldiers. The flagship of the armada was the Alcarondas and the sea throne of the king while on his journey.

The fleet and the troops of the Armament reached the Undying Lands surrounding Tol Eressëa and its armies reaching Túna, but it would lead to nothing but doom. The Valar called upon Eru and the fleet of the Armament was swept into the vast rift created by the Change of the World and drowned, and Ar-Pharazôn and his troops were buried under an avalanche of falling rocks or hills.

For many years, Ar-Pharazôn and his Great Armament was all that was generally remembered and known in later ages by men living in Middle-earth.

External link

• Great Armament at Tolkien Gateway