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Tar-Telperien

Meaning: silver one

Location(s): Númenor

Race/Species: Man

Type/Kind: 2nd age Numenoreans

Title(s): 2nd Ruling Queen of Númenor

Dates: II 1320 - 1731 [see Notes]

Parents: Tar-Súrion, 9th King of Númenor

Siblings: Isilmo

Description:

[Tar-Telperien] was the second Ruling Queen of Númenor. She was long-lived (for the women of the Númenóreans had the longer life, or laid down their lives less easily), and she would wed with no man. Therefore after her day the sceptre passed to Minastir; he was the son of Isilmo, the second child of Tar-Súrion.1 Tar-Telperien was born in the year 1320; she ruled for 175 years, until 1731,2 and died in that same year.

Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 3, The Line of Elros, Kings of Númenor


Etymology
celeb 'silver' (Quenya telep, telpë, as in Telperion) in Celeborn, Celebrant, Celebros. Celebrimbor means 'silver-fist', from the adjective celebrin 'silver' (meaning not 'made of silver' but 'like silver, in hue or worth') and paur (Quenya quare) 'fist' often used to mean 'hand'; the Quenya form of the name was Telperinquar. Celebrindal has celebrin and tal, dal 'foot'.

The Silmarillion, Appendix: Elements in Quenya and Sindarin Names


Notes
1   It is curious that the sceptre passed to Tar-Telperien when Tar-Súrion had a son, Isilmo. It may well be that the succession here depends on the formulation of the new law given in The Lord of the Rings, i.e. simple primogeniture irrespective of sex..., rather than inheritance by a daughter only if the Ruler had no son.

Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 3, The Line of Elros, Kings of Númenor: Notes, Note 8

2   The date 1731 here given for the end of the rule of Tar-Telperien and the accession of Tar-Minastir is strangely at variance with the dating, fixed by many references, of the first war against Sauron; for the great Númenórean fleet sent by Tar-Minastir reached Middle-earth in the year 1700. I [Christopher Tolkien] cannot in any way account for the discrepancy.

Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 3, The Line of Elros, Kings of Númenor: Notes, Note 9

Contributors:
Elena Tiriel 25Jul07

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