Moria (Middle-earth)

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{|align=right |- | In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, Moria (also known as Khazad-dûm, The Black Chasm, The Black Pit, Dwarrowdelf, Hadhodrond, and Phurunargian) was a name given to an enormous underground city in the Misty Mountains of Middle-earth. Its vast network of tunnels included deep mines, huge halls and connected tunnels that ran across and ultimately through the Mountains. There, for many thousands of years lived the Dwarves of Durin's Line, in the greatest subterranean construction that ever existed.

This city-state was founded by Durin 'the Deathless' during one of the Age of Stars, several thousand years before the Dawn of Man: Durin awoke at Mount Gundabad in the far northern Misty Mountains, not long after the Elves first awoke far to the east in Cuiviénen. Travelling south he eventually reached a high lake, where he witnessed a reflection of the stars in the water as a crown glittering above his head: taking this as an auspicious sign, Durin subsequently made his new home under the mountains reflected in it. He named this lake Mirrormere or Kheled-zarâm, and it remained a revered place among Dwarves of all houses ever afterwards, but the city he named Khazad-dûm, which became known later as The Dwarrowdelf in the Common Speech, Hadhodrond by the Sindar, and Casarrondo by the Ñoldor.

Here, Durin then founded the Longbeards, the most senior of the seven dwarf clans, becoming King Durin I of Khazad-dûm. Afterwards, several of his linear descendants and heirs were given his name, as they were considered to be reincarnations.

Early in the Second Age, many Dwarves from the destroyed western cities of Nogrod and Belegost in the Ered Luin came to Khazad-dûm, making it even more powerful. The Dwarves of Khazad-dûm then went on to forge a friendship with the Ñoldorin Elf realm of Eregion — but this friendship ended following the forging of Sauron's Ring of Power, and the destruction of the Elven realm. The doors of Khazad-dûm were shut, and Sauron could not enter it.

The wealth of Khazad-dûm was not in iron, silver, or gold, but in the precious metal, mithril, which was found nowhere else. In the year 1980 of the Third Age, however, the Dwarves, having at last exhausted the more accessible mithril seams, delved too deep and awakened a very powerful and mysterious evil entity that they named Durin's Bane, as it killed King Durin VI in that year, and in the following year Náin, his son. The Dwarves were unable to defeat Durin's Bane, or even drive it away, and so were forced to flee their ancient home. After that, Khazad-dûm became a place of dread and evil, and the elves named it Moria, the Black Pit.

Thereafter, Orcs of the Misty Mountains made Moria their home, but in 2790, Thror, heir of Durin, foolishly attempted to re-occupy his ancestral home. He was slain by the orc Azog, an infamous murder that precipitated The War of the Dwarves and Orcs which culminated in a very bloody battle outside Moria's eastern gates nine years later. The Dwarves were victorious, but they suffered great losses and remained unwilling to face Durin's Bane.

A few generations later, Balin, who had accompanied Bilbo Baggins on the Quest of Erebor described in The Hobbit, led a new group of Dwarves to reopen the city. At first all went well, but after a few years the community was destroyed by Orcs, although their fate was not discovered until years later.

By the end of the Third Age, at the time of the events of The Lord of the Rings, Moria had become a place of dread and horror. In The Lord of the Rings, when Frodo Baggins set out from Rivendell with the Fellowship, they at first planned to travel over the Misty Mountains. When they were stopped by snow on Mt. Caradhras, the Fellowship reluctantly agreed to journey through Moria to continue the Quest of the Ring. There they found Balin's journal and learned the fate of his expedition. They were then set upon by a group of trolls and many Orcs before being approached by Durin's Bane itself, which was finally revealed as a Balrog of Morgoth. Gandalf confronted the Demon on a narrow bridge, the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, near the remains of Moria's Eastern Gates, where they dueled briefly before plunging together into the abyss that the bridge spanned, allowing the rest of the Fellowship to escape, although both he and the Balrog survived the fall to continue their epic duel from the primordial depths below Moria to one of the mountain peaks above it (named by the Dwarves Zirakzigil), ultimately demolishing the top of Khazad-dûm's legendary Endless Stair.

With the death of the Balrog, the way was at last clear for the Longbeards to reclaim their ancient homeland, and it is told that Durin VII at last led his people back to their longed-for ancient homeland a few centuries after its destruction, retrieving what they could of Khazad-dûm's once-mighty riches. Whether many Longbeard dwarves remained at the Iron Hills, Aglarond, Erebor or elsewhere is uncertain, however, considering the Dwarvish love of Mithril it is more than likely that all of Durin's folk dwelt once again beneath the Misty Mountains in Khazad-dûm.

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