Dead City

The gleaming tower of Minas Ithil had been raised by Isildur in the earliest days of the realm of Gondor. It stood beneath the Mountains of Shadow, directly on Mordor's western border, as a defence against the Dark Lord. In this it failed; in II 3429 Sauron emerged from Mordor and captured the tower, triggering the War of the Last Alliance. Sauron was ultimately defeated in that War, and Minas Ithil was recaptured by Gondor. The Gondorians held the city guarding the walls of Mordor for the next two millennia.

In the year III 2002, Minas Ithil was again attacked, as the Lord of the Nazgûl and his fellow Ringwraiths came out of Mordor and besieged the tower. Its defenders survived for two years, but eventually the city of Isildur fell to the besieging Nazgûl. Thereafter the city became the domain of the wraiths under the rule of the Witch-king. The Gondorians changed its name to Minas Morgul, the tower of dark sorcery, but it was also known as the Dead City, because of the wraiths who now occupied it.

Soon afterward, the Witch-king challenged the King of Gondor, Eärnur, and the King eventually answered the challenge, entering into the city of the Ringwraiths. He never returned, and from the time of his loss Gondor was ruled by its Stewards, until the coming of Aragorn Elessar a thousand years later.

The Dead City remained a threat to Gondor thoughout that millennium, and played a vital part in the War of the Ring. It was here that the Enemy gathered its forces to attack Minas Tirith beyond Anduin, and this immense Morgul-host crossed the Great River and marched up to the walls of the City of Gondor. There followed the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, in which the Lord of the Nazgûl, ruler of the Dead City, was slain along with most of his host, though the other eight Nazgûl survived.

Those remaining Nazgûl were lost ten days later in the eruption of Mount Doom that followed the destruction of the One Ring. After this absolute defeat of Sauron, the Dead City of Minas Morgul was once more in the hands of Gondor. The new King, Aragorn, made no attempt to repopulate it, instead commanding that it should be utterly destroyed, and all trace of the Nazgûl erased from the valley where the Dead City had stood.