In Search of Lore Accurate Size of a Mumakil
Thread with pictures, very helpful see here
http://www.thetolkienforum.com/index...mumakil.23491/
How big Were the Mumakil?
The movies portrayed them as massive beasts that resembled historical elephants only in shape, not in size. While Tolkien described them in letters 64 as “A large elephant of prehistoric size.” It appears the largest “prehistoric” elephant kind would have been the Proboscidea. However it is based on little fossil evidence of two thigh bones and unlikely Tolkien would even be aware of these estimates- but estimates say it could have been a massive 16 feet at the shoulder.
An Ancient Elephant May Have Been Biggest Land Mammal Ever
Compared to a modern African elephant of 10-13 feet the shoulder and Asians avg of 9 feet. Below is a comparison of the African elephant with the 17 foot shoulder Proboscidea, a suggested maximum height. Human for scale.
However the steppe mammoth is the largest of the woolly mammoth/elephant kind and is based on much better fossil evidence and regularly reached 13.1 at the shoulder with similar weight/size ration as modern elephants. One fossil found could have been 14.8 at the shoulder [max size not average]. Below is the scale of mammoths compared to humans along with modern African elephants, human just under 6 feet.
To be lore accurate we are confined by Tolkien's stated “large elephant” and prehistoric size. This is still a massive elephant. People worshiped and thought divine the modern Indian elephant because of its size and strength. The average size of an Asian elephant is 9 feet at the shoulder. The massive African elephant is larger between 10-13 at the shoulder up to 4 feet higher at the shoulder. The Steppe Mammoth even lager at 13.1-14.8 feet at the shoulder. This is why I think the steppe Mammoth size of between 13.1 and 14.8 [max suggested from scant fossils] which would would be 113% as large as a the largest ever modern African elephant and 161% larger than the Asian elephant, is a good height for the mumakils and still within Tolkiens “large elephant” description. I think described with long tusks these beats should more resemble a steepe mamoths in not just size, but its features and have massive tusks. Below is a comparison of a steppe mammoth and a modern African elephant for size and features. The look of the Proboscidea above I think would be good as well just scaled down slightly in size.
http://www.thetolkienforum.com/index...mumakil.23491/
http://www.thetolkienforum.com/index...mumakil.23491/
I think the movies tried as they often do the bigger= better presentation. But I think bigger is not always better and neither did Tolkien. It looses its sense of realism, reality, and its belivabilty in a historic time period that Tolkien so desired.
“A secondary world which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is “true” it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken, the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the primary world from outside.”
-J.R.R Tolkien quoted in J.R.R Tolkien a Biography by Humphrey carpenter p 194-195
“I wanted people simply to get inside this story and take it as actual history.”
-J R R Tolkien quoted in J.R.R Tolkien The Authorized Biography Humphrey carpenter Houghton Mifflin company NY 2000
Mumakil Big as a House?
This came from a hobbit nursery rhyme and was not to be taken as literal as Tolkien said in letters 64. Tolkien also never saw himself as writing and his books need to be understood from the perspective of the character and their observations such as a hobbit seeing a massive elephant.
“Big as a house, much bigger than a house, it looked to him, a grey-clad moving hill. Fear and wonder, maybe, enlarged him in the hobbit's eyes, but the Mûmak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk.”
-TTT Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
So we can see from the text it is not saying the beast was bigger than a house, only that "it looked to him" and that "fear and wonder" enlarged the beast in the hobbits eyes. But that it was indeed a very large creature. This also brings up the question of the size of a house, we would assume sam would use his typical hobbit hole size house.
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Originally Posted by Suraknar
(because we all know there was only a single elf at the Hornburg). To include everything that everyone might have wanted included would have meant a budget far in excess of what was actually spent, and a movie hours longer. My point is that even with Jackson's interpretation(s), the movies conveyed the spirit and intent of the books. I can only speak for myself---I read the LoTR trilogy when the 2d edition was released, re-read it many multiple times, have the entire collection on disc which I listened to while driving, and the movies brought to life, perfectly, what images I had in my mind all those years.
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