Well I have been doing some research and it seems to me that Gondor is based loosely on the Byzantine Empire, Rohan on the Anglo Saxons and a tiny bit Scandinavian but mainly Anglo Saxons and I was wonderng would Arnor be based on the English Longbowman and the Western Roman Empire as it fell but the Eastern Empire still stood strong sort of like Gondor as the Eastern Empire but i still think it has a heavy English Longbowman influence, Lake - Town and Dale seem to have a Russian Vibe about them but i also get a Medieval British look to them too, the famed bowman, the English are representing the legendary archers from Dale and Esgaroth and the buildings look king of Norse/Rus/Saxon to me? Any else had any other thoughts on the kingdoms of Middle-Earth?

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"An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields When the Age of Men Comes Crashing Down" - Aragorn

I think the sort of Slavic look for Lake Town and Dale boils down to aesthetic choices by WETA, I always imagined them more along the lines of Anglo-Saxons (they're supposed to be descended from the same stock as the Rohirrim, I think).

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Well, that's my 2 cents.

The Rohirrim are descended from the Éothéod, who were themselves the remnant of the Kingdom of Rhovanion which surrounded the Lonely Mountain and the Lake (Erebor had not yet been founded when the Kingdom fell).

Assuming that some people remained behind instead of fleeing, then the Men of the Lake are definitely related to the Rohirrim, in the same way that English people today are related to Germans (the descendents of an off-shoot collection of tribes from Germania).

The Men of Laketown probably have some eastern ancestors too, from Rhun and the surrounding regions. The Kingdom of Rhovanion fell when it was invaded by tribes from the east.

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So Lake Town is a Anglo Slavic Kingdom with influences from Russia and England

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"An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields When the Age of Men Comes Crashing Down" - Aragorn

There is a trace of Neo assyria and Babylon in the Numenorians, Elendils helm is similar to some depictions of the king, as is the beard style the stylised tree on numenorian shields matches some of the releifs in the BM almost exaclty.

So just to clarify Arnor is based on the english long bowman probably

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"An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields When the Age of Men Comes Crashing Down" - Aragorn

I think the answer depends on what exactly you're asking.

When you say based on real life do you mean the cultures Tolkein has written, the look and feel that the films gave them or some kind of mixture of the two?

The English longbow was used en mass with units of archers tucked between more melee based troops. The Arnorians became very bow heavy when they were forced to become rangers to survive the wilderness (or at least they do in the film and SBG)

Thats what im saying Arnorian Warriors aka English Men at Arms or Foot Soldiers were used alot and would explain Arnors heavy armour theme i mean if you could choose one nation that displayed Arnorians what would you say

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"An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields When the Age of Men Comes Crashing Down" - Aragorn

But no LOTR army is an exact equivalent.
Rhun/Easterlings are very heavily inspired by Japanese Samurai, as well as eastern European

Harad is very heavily inspired by Turkish Muslims of the crusader period and some classic era Persia thrown in

Dol Amroth is very much your Western Europe knights such as France and England.

Mahud are drawn from African tribesmen like the Zulu.

Rohan is very saxon/Norse.

I think Gondor draws a bit more heavily from an aesthetic from the Western Roman empire than the East.

All that to say Weta obviously drew from multiple real world cultures to make middle earth look more real and less fantasy esque

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The breastplate, chainmail and helmets of the Arnorians very closely resemble these late-medieval Italians (from Perry miniatures):



The shields and spears are mostly copied from Gondor I guess, to show their relation. Greaves aren't very specific.
The rangers are just those of Gondor, which aren't very historical in any way, just your typical woodland dwelling scout.

Pretty much no information from the books is available concerning Arnor's armies, be it tactics, units, equipment or anything else. The later rangers evidentially used bows, swords and spears and worn some armour (helmets at least), based on the Grey Company. Those can hardly be described as an army however (most closely resembling Robin Hood's outlaws), and may not resemble the original Arnorians very much (seeing how over a thousand years pass between the Fall of Fornost and the Grey Company). In short, they can resemble anything you want, as there isn't much to go on in the actual sources.

See for me personally, Rohan is definately Anlgo Saxon without a doubt, Arnor is a mixture of English Longbowman and the idea of Robin Hood, the heavy infantry are more along the lines of English Foot Knights or Men at Arms and the Dunedain represent English Lords and Nobles, Bree houses look particularly English, Gondor is personally like the Byzantine Empire with a more Western Roman Empire look and organisation, Dale and Esgaroth represent Slavs and Anglo Saxons ( Rohan and Dale come from the same bloodline) and Orcs and Goblins represents the Goths.

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"An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields When the Age of Men Comes Crashing Down" - Aragorn

The vastly misrepresented and historically inaccurate stereotype of barbarian marauding Goths, I take it, rather than the refugees and pseudo-Romans that they actually were... (in the late 4th/early 5th century A.D. that is, before which they were simply one of the many Germanic tribes, and after which they were probably more akin to the Normans in terms of politics.)

I know what you mean, the main reason i say the Goths is they are the reason the roman empire fell, along with Romes other problems the Visigoths sacked the city and collapsed the Empire, Romulus Augustus was the last of Roman emperors like Arvedui was the last of kings.

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"An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields When the Age of Men Comes Crashing Down" - Aragorn