Gondolin

{|align=right In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, Gondolin was a hidden city of the Elves founded by Turgon in the First Age. Its name is Sindarin for "Hidden Rock".

As recounted in The Silmarillion, the Vala Ulmo, the Lord of Waters, revealed the location of the Vale of Tumladen to the Ñoldorin Lord Turgon in a dream. Under this divine guidance, Turgon travelled from his kingdom in Nevrast and found the vale. Within the Echoriath, the Encircling Mountains, just west of Dorthonion and east of the River Sirion, lay a round level plain with sheer walls on all sides and a ravine and tunnel leading out to the southwest known as the Hidden Way. In the middle of the vale there was a steep hill which was called Amon Gwareth, the "Hill of Watching". There Turgon decided to found a great city that would be protected by the mountains and hidden from the Dark Lord Morgoth.

Turgon and his people built Gondolin in secret. After it was completed, he took with him to dwell in the hidden city his entire people in Nevrast &mdash; almost a third of the Ñoldor &mdash; as well as nearly three quarters of the northern Sindar. He originally named the city Ondolindë, which is Quenya for "The Rock of the Music of Water" after the springs of Amon Gwareth. The name was later changed to its Sindarin form.

The Hidden Way was protected by seven gates, all constantly guarded; the first of wood, then stone, bronze, iron, silver, gold, and steel. The city stood for nearly 400 years until it was betrayed to Morgoth by Maeglin, Turgon's nephew, and sacked by the army of Morgoth the Dark Lord.

As well as Orcs and dragons, that army included iron machines powered by "internal fires" used as personnel carriers and to surmount difficult geography and fortifications and to break down fortifications: that is one of various suspicions that Morgoth knew modern technology and industrialized. That army attacked Gondolin over the northern mountains and not through the Hidden Way.

Gondolin was divided into twelve Houses, all of which had their own leaders. At the time of the Fall of Gondolin, these were:

The seven gates of Gondolin were those of Wood, Stone, Bronze, Writhen Iron, Silver, Gold, and the Great Gate of Steel. Each had its own guard and captain.

The seven names of Gondolin are told to Tuor: "Gondobar am I called and Gondothlimbar, City of Stone and City of the Dwellers in Stone; Gondolin the Stone of Song and Gwarestrin am I named, the Tower of the Guard, Gar Thurion or the Secret Place."