The dark and foreboding arch that guarded the way into the Paths of the Dead beneath the Dwimorberg, the Haunted Mountain. Those Paths were haunted by the shades of the Oathbreakers, after they were cursed by Isildur for breaking their allegiance to him. The Gate was closed to mortal Men throughout the Third Age; in all that time only one Man dared to pass it - Baldor of Rohan - and he was lost. Not until the end of that Age, as foretold in ancient prophecy, did Aragorn succeed in walking the haunted Paths and allowing the Dead to finally fulfil their broken oath.
Tolkien did not intend the form Gate of the Dead to appear in the text of The Lord of the Rings. He corrected it to Door of the Dead, but this change was not put into place until many years later, and so earlier editions of the book contain a reference to the Gate, rather than the Door, of the Dead.
Notes
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II 3441 is the date of the final victory of the Last Alliance, bringing down a curse on the Men of the Mountains who had sworn to aid Isildur but failed to fulfil their oath. This is therefore the earliest point at which they might have made the Gate of the Dead, but in principle it might have been some time - perhaps even decades - until this cursed people established themselves in the Paths of the Dead and made the Gate in the mountainside.
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- Updated 28 July 2019
- Updates planned: 1
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