Seventh Age

The Seventh Age is one of the later Ages of Awakening and is referred to in a 1960 posthumous publication by J.R.R. Tolkien called The Awaking of the Quendi (part of ) as beginning roughly 1960 years earlier., Part One: "Time and Ageing", VI: "The Awaking of the Quendi", pg. 39
In that context, Tolkien thus connected the beginning of the Seventh Age with the incarnation of Ilúvatar as the birth of Jesus Christ in 1 AD, according to the real-world Anno Domini reckoning of the Catholic Church. Tolkien also went on to say that the gap between the year 1960 of the Seventh Age and YS 310 of the First Age was 16,000 years, so the average duration of the Fourth through Sixth Ages would be approximately 2,430 solar years.
== In other versions ==
On October 14 of 1958, Tolkien wrote a letter to Rhona Beare saying that he believed that the time between the Downfall of Barad-dûr in Third Age 3019 and the present-day year 1958 was around 6,000 years, concluding that the world was closer to the end of the Fifth Age or the Sixth Age and that later ages after the Fourth would get progressively shorter.The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 211, pg. 283 (footnote)
Ultimately however, he quickly suggested that the Ages have "quickened", and that the world was now at the end of the Sixth Age or maybe in the Seventh Age.
== References ==
Category:Seventh Age
Category:Years of the Sun